The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently indicted Texas surgeon Dr. Eithan Haim, who blew the whistle on a children’s hospital performing sex change procedures on minors. Haim told the Daily Caller News Foundation he will not be intimidated or silenced, vowing to fight the allegations in court.
In 2023, Haim discovered Texas Children’s Hospital was performing pediatric sex change procedures despite hospital administrators previously telling the public that their child gender program had been shut down. Haim provided documentation of the procedures to journalist Christopher Rufo, who published a May 2023 story in City Journal and on Substack exposing Texas Children’s Hospital. Shortly after the story was published, the Texas Legislature passed a bill banning pediatric sex change procedures statewide.
However, in June 2023, federal agents arrived at Haim’s home, notifying him of he may be the subject of a potential criminal investigation related to the published whistleblower documents, according to his fundraising page. The Biden DOJ was investigating Haim for alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), a federal law that protects individually identifiable health information, such as a patient’s name.
Haim has long maintained that the documents he provided Rufo did not include any such information. Rufo, who first reported Haim’s indictment in City Journal, wrote that he “can confirm that nothing in the information provided to me identified any individual; all the documents were, in fact, carefully redacted.”
Threats of prosecution materialized this week when U.S. marshals appeared at Haim’s home and summoned him to appear in court Monday. Haim is charged with four felony counts of violating HIPPA, according to City Journal.
Haim told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview that he is not intimidated by the indictment.
“The most important thing is that, at this point, its game time,” Haim said. “We’re entering the arena, we have to fight back. I’m not going to be silenced, I’m not going to be intimidated. The most likely chance we have of winning, is to win this in court.”
On January 24, 2024, Haim’s legal team sent a letter to Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Chip Roy of Texas refuting the legitimacy of the claims made against Haim by federal prosecutor Tina Ansari.
The letter asserts the prosecution’s investigation was based on the “easily disproved falsehood” that the documents Haim provided contained children’s names.
“Yet it is obvious from a quick glance that all patient information is redacted,” Haim’s lawyers wrote. “Thus, either someone intentionally misrepresented this critical fact, or the investigation proceeded without anyone verifying the most basic facts about what happened.”
Haim estimates it will cost at least $500,000 to fight the charges in court.
“What that requires is at least $500,000 to pursue this federal trial with our attorneys,” Haim said.
His fundraising page shows he’s currently raised just over $310,000.
“Dr. Haim blew the whistle against a hospital that proclaimed it had stopped performing gender-changing surgeries and treatments on minors, when, in fact, it had not,” Haim’s lawyer Mark Lytle told the DCNF. “These surgeries are a violation of Texas law. Dr. Haim was brave in coming forward. Now the federal government is coming after him. He will strongly defend himself at trial and we expect he will be found not guilty.”
Haim maintains medical providers should be able to openly talk about procedures happening at their institutions, a sentiment core to his story.
“There’s nothing a doctor should do behind closed doors that they’re unwilling to defend in public,” Haim told the DCNF. “That’s never how medicine should be, especially when it involves children.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
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