Eithan Haim allegedly stole private health records of transgender kids who weren’t his patients and gave their medical information to an ant
Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:
A Houston-based surgeon stands accused of betraying the privacy of transgender kids who weren’t under his care by stealing their medical information and handing it over to a far-right extremist who vehemently opposes transgender rights. The federal indictment, unsealed on Monday, details Dr. Eithan Haim’s alleged unauthorized access and disclosure of sensitive patient information at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Haim, 34, completed his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and reportedly reactivated his access to the hospital’s electronic records system in April 2023. He is accused of illicitly obtaining patient names, treatment codes, and attending physician details, which he then shared with conservative activist Christopher Rufo. Rufo, known for his hardline stance against transgender rights, used the information to publish an exposé claiming the hospital continued to provide gender-affirming care for minors despite a public announcement to halt such services.
The indictment alleges Haim accessed this sensitive information under false pretenses and with malicious intent, aiming to harm Texas Children’s Hospital.
Haim’s actions followed a 2022 opinion from Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, labeling gender-affirming care for minors as a form of child abuse. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, subsequently directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents seeking such care for their children. In response, Texas Children’s Hospital announced it would pause all gender-affirming services for minors to comply with these directives and protect its staff and patients from potential legal consequences.
Dr. Eithan Haim, who leaked the health records of trans kids to far-right anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Christopher Rufo, is facing charges of violation patient privacy.
Instead of working to protect Americans' privacy, the FTC is hosting what amounts to an anti-trans rally.
S. Baum at Erin In The Morning:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hosted a July 9 “workshop” on what it called “unfair or deceptive trade practices in ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors.” However, others might call this descriptor false advertising. The 6-hour long event, held in Washington, DC, was arguably more like another avenue for stoking stochastic terrorism, as well as threatening and intimidating providers of trans-affirming health care—this time under the guise of accusing them of “fraud.”
The conference featured dozens of anti-trans zealots—including anti-trans parent activists, disgraced doctors, people from notorious right-wing extremist groups and “detransitioners”—to purportedly “help the FTC to understand whether consumers are being or have been exposed to false or unsupported claims about ‘gender-affirming care.’”
In other words, the FTC under President Donald Trump is asserting that trans kids and their parents have been robbed of informed consent. They argue that trans-affirming health care, which is supported by most every major medical organization in the country, lacks evidence rigorous enough for an Administration whose medical politics are, at best, completely arbitrary, unscientific, ideologically-charged, and internally inconsistent.
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, condemned the panel on Bluesky in response to Erin in the Morning’s live-reporting. “Instead of working to protect Americans' privacy, the FTC is hosting what amounts to an anti-trans rally,” he wrote. “Nobody is more obsessed with controlling the private decisions of the American people than Republicans.”
S. Baum, via Bluesky:
The event’s framing was, of course, dripping with pretext (to borrow the words of federal Judge Ana Reyes). It had McCarthy hearing energy—it reeked of conspiracy theories gone wild about “the gender industry,” which the feds painted as a surreptitious and far-reaching ploy “built on lies and deception,” as per Chad Mizelle, the Trump-appointed Chief of Staff of the Department of Justice.
[...]
The meeting transpired with no counterweight to the lies, vitriol, and disinformation of panelists.
For example, there was Eithan Haim, a disgraced physician who allegedly lied to a hospital to obtain and leak the confidential patient records of trans minors to the right-wing press. (The Department of Justice functionally charged him with a form of health care fraud, but dropped the case upon Trump’s return to office). There was Brandon Showalter, a far-right reporter from The Christian Post who likened gender-affirming care to Nazi experimentation in concentration camps. And then there was Erin Friday, a California attorney and anti-trans advocate who has bragged about forcing her child to abandon an expressed transgender identity.
It was perhaps Friday’s speech that was the most telling about the real purpose of the event, which again, was marketed as a symposium on “‘gender-affirming care’ for minors.”
The Trump Regime’s FTC held a “workshop” on Wednesday that falsely painted gender-affirming care for trans youths as “deceptive” and “fraud”.
The so-called “workshop” is part of the Trump Regime’s war on trans people.
Dr. Eithan Haim, a former medical resident at Texas Children's Hospital, was indicted in May for allegedly illegally accessing trans patient
Alyssa Tirrell at MMFA:
Dr. Eithan Haim, a former medical resident at Texas Children's Hospital, was indicted in May for allegedly illegally accessing trans patients’ records, which he subsequently shared with Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo.
Right-wing media figures have since defended Haim and brought him in for interviews, often equating the care allegedly provided at Texas Children's Hospital — such as the prescription of "puberty blockers" — with harm or mutilation and alleging that Haim is the target of political persecution.
The campaign has successfully raised both Haim's profile and at least $888,865, which he claims will be used for both his legal defense and “offensive legal action against those who have abused their professional responsibility in service of radical transgender ideology.”
Haim allegedly illegally accessed trans patients’ records
On February 18, 2022, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion that qualified youth gender-affirming care as "child abuse", prompting Texas Children's Hospital to announce that it would stop proving such care. Although the opinion was not legally binding, the hospital released a statement announcing that it would stop prescribing gender-affirming hormone therapies. The statement, which also alluded to recent measures that Gov. Greg Abbott had taken against families of children receiving gender-affirming care, added that “this step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential legal ramifications.” [Office of the Attorney General of Texas, 2/18/22; American Civil Liberties Union, 2/23/22; The Washington Post, 3/8/22]
In late spring 2023, Dr. Eithan Haim allegedly accessed the records of trans patients at Texas Children's Hospital and shared them with Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo. Haim, a resident at Baylor College of Medicine who had previously conducted rotations at Texas Children's Hospital, shared redacted files with Rufo that allegedly demonstrated that the hospital was continuing to provide gender-affirming services to minors. [Houston Public Media, 6/10/24; U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Texas, 6/17/24; United States District Court of the Southern District of Texas, 5/29/24]
On June 2, 2023, a Texas bill restricting gender-affirming care for children was signed into law. S.B. 14 prohibited “the provision to certain children of procedures and treatments for gender transitioning, gender reassignment, or gender dysphoria” as well as “the use of public money or public assistance to provide those procedures and treatments.” The law went into effect on September 1 of that year. [Texas legislature, 6/2/23]
[...]
Right-wing media figures platformed Haim in solo interviews, where he defended himself
Since January 2024, with the revelation of his identity, Eithan Haim has appeared as a guest alongside many prominent right-wing media figures. In these interviews Haim neither claimed to have worked directly with trans patients nor disputed sharing the documents with Chris Rufo. Instead, Haim often alleged that he was being unfairly targeted and defended his case on the grounds that the care allegedly provided at Texas Children's Hospital was harmful to pediatric patients.
Right-wing media defend Dr. Eithan Haim’s HIPAA-violating ways of illegally accessing trans patients’ records while at Texas Children’s Hospital in which he shared those records with far-right anti-LGBTQ+ agitator Christopher Rufo.
The courageous Texas surgeon was facing a decade in federal prison for blowing the whistle about gender surgery for minors. Trump just dismi
By: Emily Yoffe
Published: Jan 25, 2025
The courageous Texas surgeon was facing a decade in federal prison for blowing the whistle about gender surgery for minors. Trump just dismissed the case.
Until this afternoon, Dr. Eithan Haim, 34, was facing a potential decade in federal prison for revealing publicly that Texas Children’s Hospital was continuing to perform gender transitions on children even after declaring a moratorium on the controversial practice. For this, Haim, a Texas surgeon, became the target of the Biden Department of Justice, which indicted him for allegedly violating patient privacy laws.
There was no violation of patient privacy. What Haim blew the whistle on were surgeries to insert hormonal devices that prevent children from going through puberty. The records he revealed about these interventions carefully redacted identifying information about the patients. What’s more: He had caught the hospital in a bald-faced lie about the very existence of the program. Most dangerous for Haim was that he had run afoul of the Biden administration’s unquestioning support of medical transition of young people distressed about their gender.
“Eithan Haim was the only person with the courage to stand up for what was right,” Haim’s wife, Andrea, wrote on X about her husband taking on the powerful children’s hospital, the country’s largest. “For him, it wasn’t even a decision. Kids were being harmed, and he had to stop it.”
It came with a high price. The couple lost close friendships, all their savings, and their peace of mind. But they never budged.
On Friday came vindication.
At around 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Haim received notice that the Trump DOJ issued a dismissal of all charges against him, with prejudice—meaning the charges cannot be refiled. In a conversation with The Free Press, while he and his wife were celebrating over champagne, he said, “We didn’t think it was going to happen. We took on the federal leviathan and we won.” He added, “This is epic. This is like Lord of the Rings.”
Although Haim had raised more than $1.2 million in a GiveSendGo account, mounting a case to stay out of federal prison has cost $2 million. “We’ll be paying legal bills for 20 years,” he said.
Andrea knows about federal indictments. She herself is an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas—her husband was indicted in the Southern District. Andrea, who gave birth to their daughter four months ago, said of their ordeal, “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a year without worrying my husband would be in prison and I would be raising our daughter alone. We are now going back to normal life.”
As the Trump administration got underway, Haim had an upcoming jury trial on the Biden-era indictment. “I was facing a kangaroo court in a few weeks,” he said.
Marcella Burke, Haim’s attorney, said she and his other lawyers began to ask everyone they knew with any connection to the new administration to make the dismissal of Haim’s case a priority. But she said she had no warning that their efforts had been successful.
“We thank everyone who helped along the way to bring this massive injustice to light, and we are grateful to secure this victory on behalf of our client,” Burke said in a statement. “The fight against the evils he exposed continues, but this dismissal represents a repudiation of the weaponization of federal law enforcement and the first step in accountability for the misdeeds we have all witnessed in this case.”
Missouri senator Josh Hawley went on X Friday afternoon to tout the effectiveness of his lobbying to get the charges against Haim dismissed. He wrote, “Following my call this morning, I am delighted to report the Trump DOJ is now moving to DISMISS this illegitimate prosecution.”
Andrea Haim wrote on X that the couple had no regrets. “[I]f you ask either of us, we would do it again in a heartbeat. Because of Eithan, the world is a better place for children, including our daughter. There is no greater gift we can give her than the knowledge that her daddy is a hero.”
To support Eithan Haim and his family, please click here.
[ Via: https://archive.today/eS9WS ]
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Somehow, blowing the whistle on gender lobotomies is a crime, but illegally performing gender lobotomies is not.
A young surgeon revealed how his hospital was secretly transitioning gender-distressed children. He is now facing federal charges.
By: Emily Yoffe
Published: Jun 11, 2024
Eithan Haim, 34, is at the beginning of his career as a surgeon. He and his wife are expecting their first child in the fall. And now he is facing a four-count federal felony indictment for blowing the whistle on Texas Children’s Hospital, where he worked while a resident.
At TCH, he discovered the hospital was secretly continuing gender transition treatments on minors—including hormonal intervention on patients as young as 11 years old—after publicly declaring, in March of 2022, it would no longer provide such services.
The hospital unwillingly backed away from the treatments under pressure from the Texas governor and attorney general. But Haim found not only were the treatments continuing—the program appeared to be expanding. He recorded several online presentations by medical staff encouraging the transition of children—one social worker described how she deliberately did not make note of such treatment in the medical charts of patients to avoid leaving a paper trail. Haim told me, “They were talking publicly about how they were concealing what they were doing. You can’t take care of your patient without trust. For me as a doctor, to not do something about this was unconscionable.”
Haim, like a growing number of medical professionals around the world, had grave doubts about the safety and efficacy of the explosively growing business of youth gender transition medicine. When he looked into it, he found that children distressed about their biological sex often had multiple mental health challenges—conditions that were being ignored in the rush to put vulnerable young people on hormones, and even to perform surgical interventions. These treatments are profoundly life-altering, with a high risk of rendering a young person sterile. In the last few years, a growing number of countries have investigated these treatments for young people, found the evidence wanting, and have effectively banned interventions such as puberty blockers—drugs that prevent children from entering puberty.
Haim felt he had to act, but he knew the career risks of speaking out could be enormous. He contacted conservative journalist Christopher Rufo, who published an exposé without naming Haim. Before giving Rufo evidence that puberty blockers were still being surgically implanted in young patients, Haim made sure the patient’s names and other identifying information were redacted. This was both to protect patient privacy, and himself from violating the law known as HIPAA, which protects individual patient identities while also allowing various uses of medical information. The story Haim gave to Rufo was published May 16, 2023. The next day, the Texas legislature voted to ban the medical gender transition of minors.
Haim says there was no immediate aftermath: “Everything went quiet. I was anonymous and went on with my life.” Then June 23 of last year, the day Haim was to graduate from his residency, two federal agents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed up at his house to have a little chat. Haim’s wife, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, a different division of the U.S. Attorney’s office than the one that has indicted her husband, advised him not to talk.
As Haim later wrote in City Journal, “Before leaving, they handed me a letter revealing that I was a ‘potential target’ of an investigation involving alleged violation of federal criminal law related to medical records.” Haim then went public about the threat facing him in an interview with Rufo. (The U.S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas did not respond to a request for comment.)
Haim was indicted last week, but, as of this writing, he and his attorneys do not yet know the precise nature of the charges. One of his lawyers, Mark Lytle, told me it’s very unusual to bring felony charges for an alleged HIPAA violation unless there is a significant underlying crime, such as a hospital clerk selling a celebrity’s medical records. He said the indictment of Haim seems politically motivated. “The government is entering into the town square on the culture wars and didn’t like what Eithan had to say,” said Lytle. “I think they are looking to make an example of him.” Haim is raising money for his legal fees through this GiveSendGo account.
Haim told me despite the peril he is now facing he has no regrets about blowing the whistle and is committed to fighting the federal charges. He said, “If we don’t fight back, what world are we delivering our children into?”
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My name is Eithan Haim. I am a 33-year-old general surgeon who was the anonymous whistleblower in a story released May 16, 2023 by Christoph
So what the other whistleblower in Texas had begun to expose is doctors using potentially fraudulent billing codes as a way to bypass scrutiny from state and federal authorities. So what I mean by that is there were a few lawsuits that were filed by Ken Paxton over the past year, three of them, and in one against Dr. Cooper… It was for the violation of SB 14.
When you read the lawsuit, it describes the alleged scheme, and what they would do is they would have a patient who would come in, maybe a 16-year-old girl. And because of SB 14 being passed in Texas, it was now illegal. But how could they continue quote-unquote, gender-affirming care? How could they get these hormones prescribed but still get paid for it, or the blockers prescribed and still get paid?
So what they would do, a 16-year-old girl comes into the clinic, right? Believes she's a boy. They would change the sex on the medical chart, which is really easy, because Epic, which is a big healthcare medical system, has instituted this thing called the gender and sexual identity smart form [sic, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) SmartForm] where anyone can change the sex of the patient. So on the chart, it says male. And then for the diagnosis, they write testosterone deficiency. There may not be any kind of diagnostic evidence of testosterone deficiency, but that's what they list on the code.
So when those two things go to the insurance companies—the diagnosis, testosterone deficiency, and then the treatment, the CPT code, which is testosterone supplements—the 16-year-old girl gets the testosterone paid for, right from the pharmacy. The doctor gets paid. Insurance companies or Medicaid or Medicare don't know they're getting scammed, and we all don't know we're getting scammed. We're taxpayers.
So that's what I believe is going on at all these hospitals, because if you Google on your phone, right, gender-affirming care diagnosis codes, the fourth thing you'll find is, like the Southern Equality Law Center, right? It's like some activist organization. They have all the diagnosis codes you can use to fraudulently bill insurance companies. It's like an online guide for how to commit felony medical fraud and get away with it. It's like an online guide for cooking meth or explosive devices—like a top Google search. So that is, I think, the new frontier. But because this information is identifiable with information we have at hand, because the Do No Harm database, the Stop the Harm database was using all of this insurance data, ICD codes, doctors, and CPT codes in order to link procedures, if you were to set a certain time, January 20, 2025, before and after, and look at certain doctors, if there's an increase in a certain number of diagnosis codes, then you can pretty much guarantee you've just identified a healthcare scam.
