Recently, the AMA investigated one of its continuing medical education courses that was rife with gender ideology and unscientific endorsements of pediatric gender transitions, finding it did not comply with accreditation standards. But the AMA’s handling of the matter reveals the organization is still on board with gender activism.
Here’s the timeline:
In December, Do No Harm Medical Director Kurt Miceli, MD, submitted a complaint to the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) over a course on pediatric gender medicine produced by the American Medical Association (AMA) that is best described as promoting gender ideology.
The complaint explained that the course, titled “LGBTQ+ Patient-Centered Practices,” violates the ACCME’s standards, which require that all educational recommendations for patient care be grounded in current science, supported by clinical reasoning, and presented in a fair and balanced manner.
As Do No Harm previously reported:
Ultimately, the ACCME initiated an investigation and the AMA took the course down; the link to the course redirects to the AMA’s general CME webpage.
Then, in February of this year, the AMA Education Center sent out an email broadcasting the fact that the course did not meet the requisite accreditation standards.
Figure 1. A screenshot from an email sent by the AMA Education Center.
Here’s the relevant section:
After a recent review, we discovered the activity “LGBTQ+ Patient-Centered Practices” did not fully meet Standard 1 of the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education, specifically subsection 4: “Although accredited continuing education is an appropriate place to discuss, debate, and explore new and evolving topics, these areas need to be clearly identified as such within the program and individual presentations. It is the responsibility of accredited providers to facilitate engagement with these topics without advocating for, or promoting, practices that are not, or not yet adequately based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning.”
At first blush, this seems encouraging.
One reading of this statement is that the AMA recognizes that its course was “advocating for” practices that are not based on current evidence.
But surely this conclusion was evident to any reviewer prior to the course’s publication. Why only now, after backlash against the course’s content, is the AMA deciding the course does not fully meet standards?
What’s more, the AMA email then directs members to sources that it describes as providing “comprehensive, evidence-based guidelines and recommendations regarding appropriate and safe approaches for the problems or symptoms presented during” the course.
In other words, these sources are what the AMA considers authoritative sources of information on pediatric gender medicine.
Of course, they are anything but.
The listed sources include the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and UpToDate.
The AAP simply has not produced comprehensive evidence-based guidelines on pediatric gender medicine at all.
Instead, it has issued a policy statement, which it reaffirmed in 2023, that it clarifies is “not a comprehensive review of clinical approaches and nuances to pediatric care for children and youth that identify as” transgender. That policy statement includes the claim that puberty blockers are “reversible” treatments for gender dysphoria, a claim that is outright false.
Moreover, the AAP has criticized recent efforts to actually review the evidence behind sex-denying interventions for minors, dismissing the Department of Health and Human Services’ recent evidence review as prioritizing “opinions over dispassionate reviews of evidence.” This is, of course, a complete inversion of the truth.
UpToDate, meanwhile, is a clinical resource that provides clinicians with comprehensive summaries and detailed health information on a broad array of medical topics.
One of its resources is co-authored by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a prominent advocate for and provider of so-called “gender-affirming care.” Reportedly, Olson-Kennedy had initially refused to publish the results of a multi-million dollar, federally-funded study which, according to The New York Times, had found that “puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements” in children.
UpToDate’s resources do not engage with the wealth of evidence on the harms of child sex change interventions and the corresponding lack of evidence supporting the procedures’ effectiveness.
What’s the takeaway from all of this?
It seems like the AMA is talking out of both sides of its mouth.
For one, that the AMA believes these sources are authoritative indicates that it still is failing to grapple with the reality that the weight of evidence does not support so-called “gender-affiriming care.”
And second, that the course was created at all, and that it took a complaint to cause serious evaluation of the course’s content, does not inspire confidence in the AMA’s attitude regarding sex-denying interventions for minors.
The AMA’s attempt to distance itself from the more excessive promotions of gender ideology in its course is notable, to be sure.
But much more is necessary.
