Do No Harm (organization)

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Do No Harm is a conservative United States medical and policy advocacy group. The group opposes gender-affirming care for minors and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medicine and medical education, including race-conscious medical school admissions and other identity-based considerations regarding health care decision-making. [1] Do No Harm lobbies state legislatures to ban gender-affirming care for youth. It argues that efforts to recruit a more diverse group of medical practitioners will result in lower standards of care, and that diversity training within the health care system places politics ahead of care.

Contents

History

The group was founded in 2022 by Stanley Goldfarb, a retired kidney specialist and former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, with funding from Joseph Edelman. [2] [3] The group's initial focus was opposing anti-racism in healthcare education and hiring. [4]

The group was formed to "[protect] patients and physicians from woke healthcare", according to an April 2022 press release. [5]

In 2023, the group incorporated a second group, Do No Harm Action, which operates as a lobbying arm. [2]

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated it as an anti-LGBT hate group. [6] [7]

Gender-affirming care for minors

According to the Associated Press, the group by 2023 had "evolved into a significant leader in statehouses seeking to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths". [2] It developed model legislation state legislatures could introduce to ban such care; by May 2023 the model legislation had been introduced in Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, and West Virginia. [2] [5]

According to the Associated Press, the model legislation has been criticized for "using technical medical terminology as political rhetoric to scare people". [2] According to Columbia University's Jack Drescher, editor of the gender dysphoria section of the American Psychiatric Association's 2022 diagnostic manual update, the model legislation language is "designed to inflame". [4]

Medical school and health care diversity

According to Goldfarb, efforts by medical schools to recruit a diverse group of students mean "we're not going to look for the best and the brightest. We're going to look for people who are just OK to make sure we have the right mixture of ethnic groups in our medical schools." [2]

In 2023, Do No Harm issued a report titled Racial Concordance in Medicine: The Return of Segregation which found "no relationship between race or ethnicity concordance and the quality of communication, and inconclusive evidence for patient outcomes." Racial concordance in medicine refers to matching the races of physicians and patients. [1] [8] [9] This report was not a study and as such it was never published in any medical journal and never peer reviewed.

Related Research Articles

Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder (GID) in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder. The International Classification of Diseases uses the term gender incongruence instead of gender dysphoria, defined as a marked and persistent mismatch between gender identity and assigned gender, regardless of distress or impairment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Medical Association</span> Organization

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Stephen Barrett Levine is an American psychiatrist known for his thesis that gender dysphoria and being transgender are often caused by psychological issues that should be treated psycho-analytically as opposed to with gender-affirming care. He co-founded Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine's Gender Identity Clinic in 1974, served as the chair of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) drafting committee for the 5th edition of their Standards of Care (SOC-5) published 1998, and served on the American Psychiatric Association (APA) DSM-IV (1994) Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders.

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Gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), also called hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or transgender hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy in which sex hormones and other hormonal medications are administered to transgender or gender nonconforming individuals for the purpose of more closely aligning their secondary sexual characteristics with their gender identity. This form of hormone therapy is given as one of two types, based on whether the goal of treatment is masculinization or feminization:

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Transgender health care includes the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental health conditions for transgender individuals. A major component of transgender health care is gender-affirming care, the medical aspect of gender transition. Questions implicated in transgender health care include gender variance, sex reassignment therapy, health risks, and access to healthcare for trans people in different countries around the world. Gender affirming health care can include psychological, medical, physical, and social behavioral care. The purpose of gender affirming care is to help a transgender individual conform to their desired gender identity.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arkansas House Bill 1570 (2021)</span> 2021 Arkansas state law

Arkansas House Bill 1570, also known as the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act or Act 626, is a 2021 law in the state of Arkansas that bans gender-affirming medical procedures for transgender people under 18, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgery. The law also bans the use of public funds for and prohibits insurance from covering gender transition procedures, while doctors who provide treatment in violation of the ban can be sued for damages or professionally sanctioned. The measure makes Arkansas the first U.S. state to make gender-affirming medical care illegal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genspect</span> Organization opposing transgender rights

Genspect is an international group founded in June 2021 by psychotherapist Stella O'Malley that has been described as gender-critical. Genspect opposes gender-affirming care, as well as social and medical transition for transgender people. Genspect opposes allowing transgender people under 25 years old to transition, and opposes laws that would ban conversion therapy on the basis of gender identity. Genspect also endorses the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which proposes a subclass of gender dysphoria caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has been rejected by major medical organisations due to its lack of evidence and likelihood to cause harm by stigmatizing gender-affirming care.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine</span> Group opposing gender-affirming care

The Society For Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) is a non-profit organization that is known for its opposition to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and for engaging in political lobbying. The group routinely cites the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and mistakenly claimed that conversion therapy techniques are only practiced on the basis of sexual orientation rather than gender identity. SEGM is often cited in anti-transgender legislation and court cases, sometimes filing court briefs. It is not recognized as a scientific organization by the international medical community, and has been described as a "fringe medical organization".

Quentin L. Van Meter is a pediatric endocrinologist and president of the American College of Pediatricians, a socially conservative advocacy group which is known for opposing gay marriage, gender reassignment surgery, and abortion. He has advocated and referred his clients to conversion therapy and is known for rejecting the medical consensus on the efficacy and safety of transgender health care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Senate Bill 254 (2023)</span> Proposed legislation

Florida Senate Bill 254 is a law that prohibits gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 18, places restrictions on adult patients accessing this care, and allows the state to take temporary custody of children who may be receiving gender-affirming care now or in the future. In June 2024, a judge permanently blocked the law from taking effect. In August 2024, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the permanent injunction while the matter is appealed.

Miriam Grossman is an American psychiatrist and activist aligned with anti-LGBT and conservative advocacy organizations. She is an opponent of gender affirming medical care for transgender people, and opposes sex education in schools, which she describes as a "Marxist approach to human development".

References

  1. 1 2 Andrews, Michelle (6 July 2023). "How Health Care May Be Affected by the High Court's Affirmative Action Ruling". KFF Health News. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 McMillan, Jeff; Kruesi, Kimberlee (2023-05-20). "Meet the influential new player on transgender health bills". AP News . Archived from the original on 2023-07-04. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
  3. Flood, Brian (2022-04-19). "Do No Harm aims to keep liberal ideology out of healthcare: 'Physicians are being pushed to discriminate'". Fox News . Archived from the original on 2023-09-05. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
  4. 1 2 "Transgender health bills often came from a handful of far-right interest groups, AP finds". Chicago Sun-Times . 2023-05-22. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
  5. 1 2 Balevic, Katie. "Do No Harm, a group of 'medical professionals' fighting 'woke healthcare,' is behind many anti-trans laws". Business Insider . Archived from the original on 2023-06-06. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
  6. "Hate Map". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on March 6, 2023. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
  7. "Anti-LGBTQ". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on September 5, 2021. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
  8. Watrobski, Kristina (28 December 2023). "Major medical association slammed for offering 'segregated' scholarships to students". WPMI. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  9. Morgan, Laura (19 December 2023). "Do No Harm Releases New Report: "Racial Concordance in Medicine: The Return of Segregation"". Do No Harm. Retrieved 18 June 2024.