Medical Establishment, Not RFK, Is To Blame for Declining Public Trust | Opinion
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—it's the medical establishment itself.Trust in public health is crumbling. While Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of health and human services is seen as the face of the anti-vaccine movement, the real problem is the medical establishment's own willingness to embrace partisan politics over evidence-based science.Perhaps the most egregious example of this phenomenon is the "expert" support of so-called "gender-affirming care" for children, meaning drugs and surgeries designed to alter their sex characteristics.More than 20 major medical organizations endorse these practices, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
The AAP and other medical organizations also advocate for insurance coverage for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and "sex-change" surgeries.
The most influential guidelines on transgender health care, the World Organization for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care, removed age limits from their guidelines in 2022.All of this advocacy persists despite a lack of solid evidence that what is commonly called gender-affirming care alleviates gender dysphoria in kids or reduces the chance that gender-distressed youth will commit suicide.
Indeed, there is evidence that these treatments hurt the children they're supposed to help.Earlier this year, the Cass Review—a comprehensive review of research from the United Kingdom, commissioned by the National Health Service—found "remarkably weak evidence" pertaining to "gender-affirming care" and documented its potential risks and downsides, such as fertility loss and delayed bone growth.
