After a fierce attack was launched on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for its apparent refusal to acknowledge that the soaring number of children claiming to be transgender is due to social contagion, the AAP’s president, Moira Szilagyi, issued a weak rebuttal, insisting, “The AAP is committed to following the evidence and basing our recommendations on the best science.”
In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, pediatrician Julia Mason and Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir cited a study in Pediatrics, flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which was used to buttress the claim that the surge in transgender identity was not due to social contagion.
Mason and Sapir offered evidence as to why the study, conducted by Dr. Jack Turban and his colleagues, was flawed, later noting, “Pediatrics published his highly flawed 2020 study alleging that puberty blockers reduce suicide in teens. The journal even chose the article as its ‘Best of 2020’ despite receiving rebuttals that pointed out the rate of attempted suicide was twice as high among the puberty-blocked group and Dr. Turban hadn’t controlled for the possibility that better mental-health outcomes might be the result of factors other than hormonal intervention.”
The pair recalled that last year the AAP voted down a resolution to inform the academy’s 67,000 members about the growing global skepticism of pediatric gender transition, claiming only 57 members out of 67,000 had endorsed it and thus it was “soundly defeated,” but the next year, when 53 members backed a resolution that supported affirmative intervention, the AAP permitted it to go through, claiming it had received “broad support.”
Mason and Sapir concluded of the AAOP, “Its preference for fashionable political positions over evidence-based medicine is a disservice to member physicians, parents and children.”
Szilagyi concluded, “… the anti-trans bills in state legislatures, the social-media attacks and the rise in misinformation has an impact. The ones who suffer are the young people who are trying only to live their lives as their true selves. The AAP will continue to stand up for all children and adolescents, including those who are transgender.”
Earlier this month, furious pediatricians who are members of the AAP accused the AAP of changing its rules so that Resolution 27, which proposed a “rigorous systematic review” of the AAP’s 2018 gender policy, was blocked. The proposed resolution did not advance at the AAP leadership conference in Chicago, the only resolution affected by new procedural rules the AAP set up earlier this year.
Frustrated, members posted their objections to the AAP in the comments section for a separate resolution on the organization’s members-only website, The Daily Mail stated in an exclusive report. One comment declared, “The AAP is endorsing great harm without high-quality or long-term evidence of benefit.”