A surgeon who spoke out about alleged secret gender-affirmation procedures on minors at a Texas hospital has been charged with four felonies.
The Department of Justice charged Dr. Eithan Haim, 33, with HIPAA violations, charging him with four criminal counts.
Haim responded to the charges by saying, “They wanted to intimidate me into silence using every technique the federal leviathan had at its disposal.” But they failed.
‘The only way to lose is to submit to corruption. It’s time to fight harder than ever!’
In May 2023, Haim released medical records showing that staff at Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) had provided puberty blockers and other sex-change treatments to children, even after hospital officials said they had stopped do it in March 2022.
He has repeatedly said that the leaked documents did not include any personal patient information.
Haim’s attorney, Marcella Burke, said Fox News: ‘My client is eager to get to trial so that his side of the story can be told. “I am confident this will result in the right decision being made.”
The Department of Justice accused Dr. Eithan Haim of HIPAA violations and charged him with four criminal counts.
In January, Haim threw a fundraising to cover his legal costs for what he called a “blatant attempt at political intimidation.”
“Just over a month later… two federal agents showed up at my apartment in a very uncharacteristic, unexpected and aggressive show of force,” Haim wrote in his plea for help covering his mounting legal costs.
“I was given a target letter signed by a federal prosecutor that said I was being criminally investigated for a case involving medical records.”
The accusation, Haim says, is “driven by a highly ideological division within the Department of Health and Human Services.”
Officials seek to “silence whistleblowers who expose institutionalized medical corruption and the dangers of these hormone-based interventions for confused adolescent children,” he added.
The FBI declined to comment on the case. DailyMail.com contacted TCH but did not immediately receive a response.
Haim insists he didn’t break any rules. Although he released private medical records detailing trans medical procedures on children as young as 12, he says the patients’ identities had been redacted.
His goal is to raise $500,000 through the GiveSendGo.com website to cover his legal costs in a case that he says has already forced him to cash in on his retirement funds, investments and other savings.
“While we have given this case everything we have, there is simply not enough to cover the hundreds of thousands we currently owe in legal bills or the potential millions it would cost to take this case to trial,” he said. he wrote she.
Texas Children’s Hospital said it would stop gender-affirming care procedures after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ruled in February 2022 that gender-affirming care for children could be a form of child abuse under the state law.
However, in May 2023, right-wing activist Christopher Rufo published documents from Haim, then an anonymous whistleblower, showing that TCH doctors continued to provide gender-based treatments to children within days of the hospital’s decision, and continued doing so throughout 2022 and 2023.
According to records, a TCH doctor performed transgender medical procedures on minors ranging in age from 12 to 17, with “types of visits” listed as “gender dysphoria” and “gender identity.”
Another visit for ‘HRT (hormone replacement therapy)’ was included.
Other records detailed the removal of “non-biodegradable drug delivery implants” for “gender dysphoria in pediatric patients.”
They are understood to be pellets placed under the skin of the upper arm that slowly release opposite-sex hormones or puberty blockers to minors who identify as trans, without the need for regular injections or pills.
One procedure listed in the documents suggests that one appointment was with an 11-year-old “female-to-male transgender person,” three days after the hospital announced it was stopping such treatments.
The documents also describe a 19-year-old girl who was interested in breast removal surgery.
The records list a 15-year-old boy who has “questions about the surgery.”
The documents also include image captures from a slide deck presented in January 2023 titled ‘Medical and Psychological Care for Gender Diverse Youth,’ in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine.
After the revelations, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into TCH, and the Houston-based center again said it was stopping gender reassignment treatments for children.
At the time, a TCH spokeswoman told DailyMail.com that doctors provided “high-quality care to all patients… within the confines of the law.”
Advocates of gender-affirming care say it is a necessary treatment for suicide-prone minors. Critics say children are too young to opt for irreversible sex-change treatments and often only need mental health counseling.