The whole thing is so insane. Last month I took my 13 and 14 year-old children to their (now former) pediatrician. While there the nurse handed them a survey and a second survey hidden under that one. Thankfully, I went back to the exam room with my kids. Then nurse said, "if the second survey makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to fill it out.” That piqued my interest so I took a look. The survey was all about how you identify...have so many options!! Then it went to ask about sexual orientation....so many options. I was pissed! I took both of the surveys and gave them back to the nurse. I told her that she needs to let parents know ahead of time about this survey. Then I took a picture right in front of her and told her I would be letting my friends know about this survey since they also bring their kids here. I would upload the picture to this comment if I could!
We will not go back. My kids are old enough to go to a regular family doctor. And I am looking for one that is over 50, religious and sticks to science. I will drive extra miles if I have to.
As a Bioethics professor, I will make this required reading for all my classes. Nurses have become progressively more skeptical of this new political tilt of young, what they see as, dangerously naive doctors. The schism between common sense nurses and politicized doctors is widening. Thankfully!
What is happening? Why is politics poisoning all aspects of our lives? It is like we are living in a dystopian nightmare. I used to love politics and writing about it was fun, but now I feel an urge to distance myself from it. There are no limits to these people. When reality closes in, they shape-shift, which makes them unstoppable, invincible. I witnessed in horror how this happened live, in front of our eyes, on the podium of the White House, concerning The Twitter Files. My heart aches for these children. Our only hope while we don't find a way to fight this disease is the parents' common sense, which is not very much unfortunately.
"the AAP is first and foremost a standard-setting body".
The AAP is a professional association and in practice likely acts like one. That probably means that "professional association" should be replaced with "trade association" since professional standards and concern for all stakeholders (including the public) are likely subordinated to the economic interests of those members that are aggressive enough to pursue leadership positions. The practitioners that hold a "purist" view of their organization are likely laughed at by the organization's leadership.
I am aware of a midlevel provider association that represents thousands of practitioners (and are in line to treat millions of patients) that has been reduced to two leadership individuals and a team of lobbyists. There is no focus on even the membership at large that provide the dues to fund the association's activities.
That observation is straight from the mouth of the lobbyist that has been representing the organization for years. I should know. I introduced the association to the lobbyist. And that was not the narrow focus of the organization at the time of the introduction.
The real issue is not that some have now lost faith in the AAP. The real issue appears to be why these lobbying trade associations are ever thought of as standard setting organizations in whom the public should place their trust. Better to promote a healthy and active tort system. While not perfect, the public crucifixion of the reputations and finances of the worst actors will result in the setting of standards.
Perhaps the litigation mounting around the Tavistock gender identity clinic will serve to knock some sense into the area.
The polarization of almost every institution in this country, is hard to swallow. I’m New York (upstate), one of the bigger medical facilities where I live, asks intake questions of 12 year old children and up, such as “How do you identify,” “Are there guns in your house,” “Do you feel safe,” and further contraceptive questions.
A class action lawsuit would be one avenue to explore as these ideological zealots override true scientific inquiry for political objectives. This is part of a disturbing trend where expertise is cloaked in a Fauciesque "I am the science" mindset. The politicization of science on all levels has the capacity to facillitate an unchecked authoritarianism as CS Lewis has observed:
"“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
What bothers me about the gender identity stuff with young kids is that many, many kids don't do things that traditionally correspond to their gender but grow up to be happy with the gender they were born to.
For example, a boy who loves sewing. In the distant past, he would have been told "that's for girls, don't be a sissy" which is bad. In the recent past, he would be encouraged and perhaps grow up to have a career in fashion, which is fine. Now, he'd be asked "are you sure you're not a girl?" which is just as bad as what was done in the distant past only with new language.
Same thing with girls. My sister's favorite toy as a kid was a garbage truck. She would drive it around the house, pick up dust and paper, put it in her garbage truck and take it to the dump. Again, in the distant past she would have been directed toward dolls or something more feminine. In the more recent past most people would be fine with her playing however she wants. Now, she'd be asked "are you sure you're not a boy?" again which is just as bad as the distant past only with new language.
TLDR: not every kid behaves in a way traditionally associated with their gender but that doesn't mean they need to change genders!!!
The hijacking of American professional associations is now the norm. Take the American Library Association whose recommendations are followed by school libraries. School libraries are the center of controversies right now over the presence of books that are clearly pornography.
Most people think the ALA applies neutral standards of literary merit to its recommendations. But the ALA is led by a far-left cadre that exercises influence nationwide far beyond its size.
The ALA claims 54,000 members. However, most don’t participate in elections that affect the direction of the organization. It recently held an election for president and a little more than 5000 members, opposed by a little over 4000 members chose a president who describes herself as a “Marxist lesbian.” She is well represented on social media advocating the “queering” of the library. What does that mean? I think we know and it is evident in the books they recommend that school libraries buy.
Why doesn’t the “silent majority” of association members revolt?
Great research/article. I love the quote that the AAP...'doesn't want kids crossing the street at 10, but puberty blockers are ok'. Love, but despise (the quote). 12 yrs old can find porn on their computer, upload videos to youtube, yet their parents don't expect them to do their laundry, mow the lawn or rake leaves. But I digress...I realized long ago that everything goes back to first and foremost money, and secondly, power (which leads to political alignment and... money!). This entire situation is so disturbing - I'm glad our kids are no longer kids. I personally have the education and work experience (pharma) to read and understand the research, but the vast majority of parents do not or don't have the time (I didn't have the time, nor did I even think I had to)....that wasn't that long ago. What has happened in such a short time????
Yes. Well. The politicization of the American Medical Association and its spinoffs is hardly new. But it occurs on a far more fragmented, state-by-state basis than Mr. Sibarium implies in his article above, and it supports conservative hegemony just as often as it supports progressive hegemony.
For example: The entire crisis in primary healthcare access could have been solved 15 years ago simply by allowing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to practice autonomously to the full extent of their training and education without physician oversight.
Instead, the U.S. got saddled with the Frankensteinian Affordable Care Act—as though access to healthcare _insurance_ was somehow equivalent to access to healthcare.
Anyway, I totally agree that most of the COVID restraints in this country were draconian: It falls on the people most vulnerable to infection to protect themselves—I am one of those people, by the way, and I would have been perfectly happy to cloister, shop at special store hours at 5 am in the morning, etc, etc, while the rest of America lived its normal life.
To apply COVID restraints to _children_ who were the least susceptible to COVID infections was totally ridiculous, and as it turns out _dangerous_ since it is very likely that the perfect storm of RSV/flu infections that are filling pediatric hospitals now are due to those COVID restraints.
And it is equally ridiculous to allow anyone under the age of consent to embark on surgical or hormonal gender change treatments. If you're too young to get a tattoo, you're too young to do anything else that's essentially _irretrievable_ to your body.
Doctors shouldn't weep over the fact that the reputation of the medical profession lies in tatters and people are openly questioning and mocking their advice. "Gender affirming care?" If you think you can build a penis from a vagina or vice versa you're aping Mary Shelley. These quacks are condemning children to a lifetime of misery and pain.
Time to face facts - When you practice "political medicine," you're practicing politics, not medicine. When you do the bidding of Big Pharma, you have the morals of a streetwalker. Many of the policies advocated by Democrats are patent lunacy. No surprise, then, that 2/3 of the doctors in the AAP are Democrats. Nobody wants to be treated by a lunatic. The professional organizations - all stripes of the AMA, the ABA and others - have been captured by hard core leftist demagogues. Unless professionals want to see their professions mocked and degraded it's time to grow up, stop believing in fairy tales and recapture or replace these rotten structures.
I think there are two fundamental forces at work here.
1. O’Sullivan’s Law: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
2. Taleb’s Dictatorship of the Small Minority: “It suffices for an intransigent minority--a certain type of intransigent minorities--to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences.”
A new study , co-authored by Makary and Prasad, shows that the covid booster is a NET NEGATIVE in young adults. The risks outweigh the benefits. No one should be forced to get one.
Great read, great reporting. I am a new parent and can absolutely attest to the distrust I now have for the AAP. How can we be expected to follow their lead with a track record like this?
When I became a member of AAP about 30 years ago I was so proud of myself. I never forgot to add FAAP ( fellow of AAP) behind my MD. The AAP certificate hang prominently framed in my office. Now it’s shredded and flushed down the literal toilet. When discussing treatments with parents of my patients I would always add “ these are AAP recommendations” or some such. Now in the height of flu and RSV and many other viral illnesses I can’t bring myself to mention AAP. Hospitals and ERs are overwhelmed with sick children but you wouldn’t know about it just reading daily news. AAP has not being to say.
I stopped being a member about 10 years ago when the guidelines became less about health and more about politics. I am ashamed of their stance on “gender affirming “ guidelines. AAP used to be looked upon by other international pediatric medicine governing bodies but now the agency is a laughing stock. Covid restrictions were hard and nonsensical but after all they were temporary. Mutilating surgeries and medications to change gender are forever. Irreversibly damaging. Finally some of the victims are suing their doctors for performing these “treatments “ but the whole AAP should be held liable, charged and revamped. Or abolished and start from scratch. Pediatricians are in general completely brainwashed by leftist ideologues and now it is coming back at us in the new generations of children who are being forced to question their gender. This to me is the complete height of insanity in this country. I am not a conspiracy theorist but it seems there is a concerted effort to destroy us from within.
The Hijacking of Pediatric Medicine
The whole thing is so insane. Last month I took my 13 and 14 year-old children to their (now former) pediatrician. While there the nurse handed them a survey and a second survey hidden under that one. Thankfully, I went back to the exam room with my kids. Then nurse said, "if the second survey makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to fill it out.” That piqued my interest so I took a look. The survey was all about how you identify...have so many options!! Then it went to ask about sexual orientation....so many options. I was pissed! I took both of the surveys and gave them back to the nurse. I told her that she needs to let parents know ahead of time about this survey. Then I took a picture right in front of her and told her I would be letting my friends know about this survey since they also bring their kids here. I would upload the picture to this comment if I could!
We will not go back. My kids are old enough to go to a regular family doctor. And I am looking for one that is over 50, religious and sticks to science. I will drive extra miles if I have to.
(Edit for typos)
As a Bioethics professor, I will make this required reading for all my classes. Nurses have become progressively more skeptical of this new political tilt of young, what they see as, dangerously naive doctors. The schism between common sense nurses and politicized doctors is widening. Thankfully!
What is happening? Why is politics poisoning all aspects of our lives? It is like we are living in a dystopian nightmare. I used to love politics and writing about it was fun, but now I feel an urge to distance myself from it. There are no limits to these people. When reality closes in, they shape-shift, which makes them unstoppable, invincible. I witnessed in horror how this happened live, in front of our eyes, on the podium of the White House, concerning The Twitter Files. My heart aches for these children. Our only hope while we don't find a way to fight this disease is the parents' common sense, which is not very much unfortunately.
"the AAP is first and foremost a standard-setting body".
The AAP is a professional association and in practice likely acts like one. That probably means that "professional association" should be replaced with "trade association" since professional standards and concern for all stakeholders (including the public) are likely subordinated to the economic interests of those members that are aggressive enough to pursue leadership positions. The practitioners that hold a "purist" view of their organization are likely laughed at by the organization's leadership.
I am aware of a midlevel provider association that represents thousands of practitioners (and are in line to treat millions of patients) that has been reduced to two leadership individuals and a team of lobbyists. There is no focus on even the membership at large that provide the dues to fund the association's activities.
That observation is straight from the mouth of the lobbyist that has been representing the organization for years. I should know. I introduced the association to the lobbyist. And that was not the narrow focus of the organization at the time of the introduction.
The real issue is not that some have now lost faith in the AAP. The real issue appears to be why these lobbying trade associations are ever thought of as standard setting organizations in whom the public should place their trust. Better to promote a healthy and active tort system. While not perfect, the public crucifixion of the reputations and finances of the worst actors will result in the setting of standards.
Perhaps the litigation mounting around the Tavistock gender identity clinic will serve to knock some sense into the area.
The polarization of almost every institution in this country, is hard to swallow. I’m New York (upstate), one of the bigger medical facilities where I live, asks intake questions of 12 year old children and up, such as “How do you identify,” “Are there guns in your house,” “Do you feel safe,” and further contraceptive questions.
A class action lawsuit would be one avenue to explore as these ideological zealots override true scientific inquiry for political objectives. This is part of a disturbing trend where expertise is cloaked in a Fauciesque "I am the science" mindset. The politicization of science on all levels has the capacity to facillitate an unchecked authoritarianism as CS Lewis has observed:
"“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
What bothers me about the gender identity stuff with young kids is that many, many kids don't do things that traditionally correspond to their gender but grow up to be happy with the gender they were born to.
For example, a boy who loves sewing. In the distant past, he would have been told "that's for girls, don't be a sissy" which is bad. In the recent past, he would be encouraged and perhaps grow up to have a career in fashion, which is fine. Now, he'd be asked "are you sure you're not a girl?" which is just as bad as what was done in the distant past only with new language.
Same thing with girls. My sister's favorite toy as a kid was a garbage truck. She would drive it around the house, pick up dust and paper, put it in her garbage truck and take it to the dump. Again, in the distant past she would have been directed toward dolls or something more feminine. In the more recent past most people would be fine with her playing however she wants. Now, she'd be asked "are you sure you're not a boy?" again which is just as bad as the distant past only with new language.
TLDR: not every kid behaves in a way traditionally associated with their gender but that doesn't mean they need to change genders!!!
The hijacking of American professional associations is now the norm. Take the American Library Association whose recommendations are followed by school libraries. School libraries are the center of controversies right now over the presence of books that are clearly pornography.
Most people think the ALA applies neutral standards of literary merit to its recommendations. But the ALA is led by a far-left cadre that exercises influence nationwide far beyond its size.
The ALA claims 54,000 members. However, most don’t participate in elections that affect the direction of the organization. It recently held an election for president and a little more than 5000 members, opposed by a little over 4000 members chose a president who describes herself as a “Marxist lesbian.” She is well represented on social media advocating the “queering” of the library. What does that mean? I think we know and it is evident in the books they recommend that school libraries buy.
Why doesn’t the “silent majority” of association members revolt?
Great research/article. I love the quote that the AAP...'doesn't want kids crossing the street at 10, but puberty blockers are ok'. Love, but despise (the quote). 12 yrs old can find porn on their computer, upload videos to youtube, yet their parents don't expect them to do their laundry, mow the lawn or rake leaves. But I digress...I realized long ago that everything goes back to first and foremost money, and secondly, power (which leads to political alignment and... money!). This entire situation is so disturbing - I'm glad our kids are no longer kids. I personally have the education and work experience (pharma) to read and understand the research, but the vast majority of parents do not or don't have the time (I didn't have the time, nor did I even think I had to)....that wasn't that long ago. What has happened in such a short time????
Yes. Well. The politicization of the American Medical Association and its spinoffs is hardly new. But it occurs on a far more fragmented, state-by-state basis than Mr. Sibarium implies in his article above, and it supports conservative hegemony just as often as it supports progressive hegemony.
For example: The entire crisis in primary healthcare access could have been solved 15 years ago simply by allowing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to practice autonomously to the full extent of their training and education without physician oversight.
Instead, the U.S. got saddled with the Frankensteinian Affordable Care Act—as though access to healthcare _insurance_ was somehow equivalent to access to healthcare.
Anyway, I totally agree that most of the COVID restraints in this country were draconian: It falls on the people most vulnerable to infection to protect themselves—I am one of those people, by the way, and I would have been perfectly happy to cloister, shop at special store hours at 5 am in the morning, etc, etc, while the rest of America lived its normal life.
To apply COVID restraints to _children_ who were the least susceptible to COVID infections was totally ridiculous, and as it turns out _dangerous_ since it is very likely that the perfect storm of RSV/flu infections that are filling pediatric hospitals now are due to those COVID restraints.
And it is equally ridiculous to allow anyone under the age of consent to embark on surgical or hormonal gender change treatments. If you're too young to get a tattoo, you're too young to do anything else that's essentially _irretrievable_ to your body.
Doctors shouldn't weep over the fact that the reputation of the medical profession lies in tatters and people are openly questioning and mocking their advice. "Gender affirming care?" If you think you can build a penis from a vagina or vice versa you're aping Mary Shelley. These quacks are condemning children to a lifetime of misery and pain.
Time to face facts - When you practice "political medicine," you're practicing politics, not medicine. When you do the bidding of Big Pharma, you have the morals of a streetwalker. Many of the policies advocated by Democrats are patent lunacy. No surprise, then, that 2/3 of the doctors in the AAP are Democrats. Nobody wants to be treated by a lunatic. The professional organizations - all stripes of the AMA, the ABA and others - have been captured by hard core leftist demagogues. Unless professionals want to see their professions mocked and degraded it's time to grow up, stop believing in fairy tales and recapture or replace these rotten structures.
I think there are two fundamental forces at work here.
1. O’Sullivan’s Law: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
2. Taleb’s Dictatorship of the Small Minority: “It suffices for an intransigent minority--a certain type of intransigent minorities--to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences.”
A new study , co-authored by Makary and Prasad, shows that the covid booster is a NET NEGATIVE in young adults. The risks outweigh the benefits. No one should be forced to get one.
Mengele was a doc that worked with children
Great read, great reporting. I am a new parent and can absolutely attest to the distrust I now have for the AAP. How can we be expected to follow their lead with a track record like this?
When I became a member of AAP about 30 years ago I was so proud of myself. I never forgot to add FAAP ( fellow of AAP) behind my MD. The AAP certificate hang prominently framed in my office. Now it’s shredded and flushed down the literal toilet. When discussing treatments with parents of my patients I would always add “ these are AAP recommendations” or some such. Now in the height of flu and RSV and many other viral illnesses I can’t bring myself to mention AAP. Hospitals and ERs are overwhelmed with sick children but you wouldn’t know about it just reading daily news. AAP has not being to say.
I stopped being a member about 10 years ago when the guidelines became less about health and more about politics. I am ashamed of their stance on “gender affirming “ guidelines. AAP used to be looked upon by other international pediatric medicine governing bodies but now the agency is a laughing stock. Covid restrictions were hard and nonsensical but after all they were temporary. Mutilating surgeries and medications to change gender are forever. Irreversibly damaging. Finally some of the victims are suing their doctors for performing these “treatments “ but the whole AAP should be held liable, charged and revamped. Or abolished and start from scratch. Pediatricians are in general completely brainwashed by leftist ideologues and now it is coming back at us in the new generations of children who are being forced to question their gender. This to me is the complete height of insanity in this country. I am not a conspiracy theorist but it seems there is a concerted effort to destroy us from within.