Second Circuit Revives DEI Challenge to Pfizer Fellowship

A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit challenging Pfizer Inc.‘s fellowship program aimed at building a diverse workforce, saying that a trial judge applied the wrong standard in assessing whether the challenger had legal standing to sue.

A divided three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last year had initially upheld the trial judge’s ruling that Do No Harm—an advocacy group of health-care professionals, students, and policy makers who said the program is discriminatory—failed to identify any individual members who allegedly were harmed by the policy.

Second Circuit precedent requires the members to provide sufficient evidence to show they were ready to apply to the program, but the organization fell short of doing that, that panel said in March 2024.

On panel rehearing, the Second Circuit on Friday withdrew that opinion.

“We conclude that the district court applied the wrong standard in assessing Do No Harm’s standing for purposes of dismissal,” it said.

Read more on Bloomberg Law.

Pfizer must face lawsuit over diversity fellowship program, US court rules

A U.S. appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit by a conservative group opposed to diversity initiatives in medicine that challenged a Pfizer (PFE.N) fellowship program designed to boost the pipeline of Black, Latino and Native American people in leadership positions at the drugmaker.

At the urging of the group Do No Harm, a 2-1 panel of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revisted a decision it issued last year holding the organization lacked legal standing to challenge the drugmaker’s program in court.

Read more on Reuters.

Medical School Opens Up ‘BIPOC’ Physician’s Directory to All Races after Lawsuit from Watchdog Group

The University of Washington’s medical school is clarifying that a professional networking tool is available to white physicians after facing a legal challenge for alleged racial discrimination.

The University of Washington School of Medicine is renaming its “BIPOC Physicians Directory” and advertising its availability to all races to resolve a lawsuit from Do No Harm, a medical watchdog opposed to identity politics in medicine, National Review has learned.

Both parties will be seeking to dismiss Do No Harm’s lawsuit, first reported by NR in October, now that the database is open to all students and physicians seeking to make use of it. Do No Harm originally filed a legal challenge in federal court accusing UW

Medical School of violating the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Affordable Care Act.

“This is a win for University of Washington’s medical students, the medical community, and the crucial principle of equality,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm.

The lawsuit said an unnamed white physician who is a member of Do No Harm suffered as a result of being barred from the old version of the networking database. The database allows medical students to connect with physicians and ask them career-oriented questions and gain valuable guidance.

Read more on National Review.

Here’s How Much Medical Schools Pay For Membership In Woke Academic Association

The invoice, obtained through a public information request by Do No Harm, an organization opposed to the politicization of medicine, shows that the University of Utah’s Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine paid $75,760 for a year-long institutional membership in the AAMC starting on July 1, 2024. The AAMC counts as members all 158 American medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which the organization co-sponsors. 

The AAMC has been accused of harming medical education through leftist political initiatives, including its commitment to DEI initiatives, “anti-racism,” and promoting transgender ideology. A comprehensive report from Do No Harm highlights the full extent of the AAMC’s DEI programs. 

“It’s just ironic that the medical schools are held captive to pay this kind of money to be dished out all the crap that comes out of the AAMC,” Laura Morgan, the author of the report and Do No Harm’s senior director of programs, told The Daily Wire.

Do No Harm director of research Ian Kingsbury pointed out that the AAMC’s DEI agenda has gone beyond mere recommendations. He said in one instance, the LCME pressured the University of Utah School of Medicine because it said the school’s “diversity/pipeline programs and partnerships” were “unsatisfactory.” LCME later claimed that it had a broad definition of diversity that expanded beyond race and gender.

Read more in The Daily Wire.

Trump Can Bring Transparency to the Transgender Mess

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Of all the messes that Joe Biden is leaving Donald Trump, the dirtiest may be the federal government’s endorsement of sex-change treatments for children.

The Biden administration has supported expanding children’s access to invasive and irreversible medical interventions while ignoring the mounting evidence — including from a landmark federally funded study — that children aren’t benefitting. Trump can right this wrong by providing physicians and families with full transparency about the sorry state of the medical research and protecting children from being subjected to further experimentation and pain.

Read more in National Review.

Gender transition procedures for minors receive increased scrutiny from emboldened GOP

According to medical nonprofit group Do No Harm, between 2019 and 2023, there were at least 13,394 gender reassignment procedures on individuals 17.5 years old or younger nationwide, with the youngest seven years old. 

Read ore in The Center Square.

Seattle doctor rushing to do trans surgeries before Trump inauguration slammed in scathing ad campaign

Do No Harm, an advocacy group opposed to the performance of transgender surgeries on minors, launched a digital ad campaign largely centered in the Seattle area to spotlight the dozens of sex-reassignment surgeries Sajan has performed and intends to keep performing as President-elect Donald Trump gets ready to take office.

Do No Harm’s digital ad campaign is targeting Seattle-based Dr. Javad Sajan.

“Dr. Sajan is notorious for bragging about his aggressive approach to transitioning as many children as possible before common sense protections are put in place to protect minors from irreversible and often harmful sex change interventions,” Do No Harm’s chief operating officer Lindsay Killen told The Post.

Killen hit back at the denial, underscoring that Do No Harm presented evidence “through insurance claims data, which shows just how prolific he is in the child sex change industry.”

Do No Harm also cited a lawsuit from the Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s Office against Sajan that alleged he improperly stifled negative reviews.

Read more in the New York Post.

Boston U. ‘Queering Health’ class to teach ‘LGBTQ+ affirming therapies’

Ian Kingsbury, research director at Do No Harm, told The College Fix via a media statement that the course is politicizing medicine.

“The politically coded language is a strong indication that this course is activism masquerading as science,” Kingsbury said.

He said that while those who identify as part of the gay and trans communities face many health challenges, this course aims to advance a specific agenda rather than solve the problem at hand.

“Rather than substantively addressing those challenges and potential solutions,” he said, “I suspect that this course peddles ideology and pseudoscience.”

“Unfortunately, when it comes to issues around gender or race, it’s very common that medical ‘experts’ privilege ideology over dispassionate pursuit of truth. Given the course description, I’d be shocked if this course was an exception,” Kingsbury said.

Read more on The College Fix.

Do No Harm sues Defense Dept officials, University of Colorado, for allegedly discriminating against white applicants for medical scholarships

Non-profit advocacy group Do No Harm (DNH) recently filed a lawsuit against the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons (SOMOS) on grounds that their E. Anthony Rankin Scholarship Program excludes white applicants from qualifying for the award.

The complaint centers around the particular case of “Member A,” an anonymous would-be applicant for the award who contacted DNH after learning that his racial background prevented him from receiving the scholarship.

“Member A was hurt and dismayed that SOMOS would use his race — which he cannot control — to preclude him from participating in the program and learning from some of the country’s most distinguished orthopaedic surgeons in service of our nation’s military and veteran communities,” the complaint states, according to Fox News.

Read more on Campus Reform.

Major Medical Association Pushes For DEI ‘To Be Embedded In Everything’

AAMC Director of Gender Equity Initiatives Diana Lautenberger said Thursday that the latest webinar was focused on “how do you really institutionalize allyship at your organization” and ”what allyship looks like and sounds like at the institutional level.”

The webinar came after Do No Harm, an organization that pushes to de-politicize medicine, released an exhaustive report on how the AAMC pushes a leftist policy agenda. The report exposed how the AAMC is committed to DEI and so-called anti-racism efforts in addition to pushing leftwing theories about race and supporting transgender procedures on children. 

“As people outside the bubble of academia become more aware of the endless number of DEI initiatives that the AAMC has spent tens of millions of dollars to push instead of promoting science-based medical education, the public’s trust will dwindle,” Do No Harm Senior Director of Programs Laura Morgan told The Daily Wire.

Morgan with Do No Harm said that the AAMC’s programing was a waste of time that didn’t advance medical knowledge.

Read more on The Daily Wire.

Scholarship programs slapped with lawsuits for alleged discrimination against White men

Two scholarship programs for “underrepresented” minorities are being slapped with lawsuits for allegedly discriminating against White people.

The nonprofit organization Do No Harm (DNH) is challenging the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (SOMOS) E. Anthony Rankin Scholarship Program on behalf of a DNH member who said he could not continue with the application process because he is a White male. 

The program, which is “meant for underrepresented medical students,” matches students with a “U.S. Military host” at one of two medical centers, the complaint states. The program spans four weeks, during when students can receive up to $12,000 “to cover ‘travel, housing, and daily per diem for the duration’ of their time hosted by the military,” the filing reads, quoting the program’s website description. 

Read more on Fox News.

US Medical Schools Cautiously Navigate Admissions in New Legal, Political Environment

Stanley Goldfarb, MD, chairman of Do No Harm, a legal activism and policy advocacy group opposed to DEI in healthcare, credited the Supreme Court decision for validating his organization’s work. “It just set the table for the idea that what we were doing was going to be consistent with the law of the land,” he said.

Since 2022, Do No Harm has filed or supported 14 lawsuits against healthcare-related organizations and filed 86 federal civil rights complaints against medical and nursing schools for diversity initiatives the organization contended were discriminatory.

Do No Harm supports proposed legislation that would eliminate federal funding for medical schools with DEI offices. Society should be colorblind, and DEI, which racially separates people, is discriminatory, said Goldfarb, contending that medical school admissions “should be based completely on merit and nothing else.” He also challenged the notion that patients who receive care from doctors of the same race have better outcomes, noting evidence that hasn’t supported that conclusion.

Goldfarb said Do No Harm, formed in 2022, has 14,000 members, including doctors, other healthcare workers, and patients. The total figure is a small fraction of the 1.1 million practicing physicians in the United States, but Goldfarb said that membership doubled from earlier this year.

Read more on MedScape.

‘Mount Rushmore Of DEI’: How A Major Academic Association Is ‘Destroying’ Medicine

Do No Harm, an organization devoted to de-politicizing medicine, published an exhaustive 80-page report on Tuesday documenting how the AAMC has integrated DEI into its influential academic programs and advanced a leftist public policy agenda. This includes allowing ideology to creep into medical school testing, pushing racially-focused medical theories, and promoting transgender medical procedures on children. 

“The AAMC corrupts medical education by blatantly embedding DEI into American medical schools,” Dr. Jared Ross, a senior fellow with Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire. “Our report offers practical solutions to restore excellence in the medical curriculum.

The medical education system in this country should be focused on science-based teachings rather than forcing students to engage with a radical political ideology.”

Ian Kingsbury, the director of research at Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire that the association had infused DEI ideology “into all facets of medical school application, education, and then placement into residency.”

Read more on The Daily Wire.

Opponents on minor gender dysphoria care feel medicine is on their side

The question before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday was whether a Tennessee law banning gender dysphoria treatment for minors is unconstitutional.

On the steps was Dr. Jared Ross, a member of Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals who say their mission is to keep identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.

Ross has a story, too, about a blue-haired girl who came into an emergency room one night. She described herself as “gender-confused,” Ross said in an interview with The Center Square.

“She was cutting herself with a razor blade because voices were telling her to,” Ross said. “Can you imagine if I had affirmed these voices, affirming what she was hearing? That would have been malpractice, that would have been criminal. I didn’t affirm those voices. I also didn’t affirm her gender confusion.”

Read more on The Center Square.

Detransitioners, parents demand end to ‘butchery’ of children through sex-change surgeries

Former transgenders, parents and activists braved frigid temperatures on Wednesday morning to rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court to demand an end to the “butchery” and “trauma” of child sex-change surgeries and treatments.

The rally took place as the court heard oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a high-stakes case over the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and transgender surgeries for minors.

One of the rally speakers, Matt Walsh, who is a podcast host for the Daily Wire and creator of the “What Is a Woman” documentary, told Fox News Digital that the case is about “basic truth.”

Read more on Fox News.

Four Ways Trump Can Scrap Biden’s ‘Equity’ Discrimination And Promote Real Equality

What can the new administration do about these entrenched DEI programs? There are at least four critical steps Trump can take immediately to make good on campaign promises to vanquish DEI from the federal bureaucracy. 

First, on day one, Trump should rescind Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity. This order pointed the entire federal bureaucracy toward racialized policy agendas and the development of “equity action plans,” which discriminated against individuals in hiring, firing, promotion, and even public-facing benefits and services. According to a report from Do No Harm, this executive order resulted in more than 500 race-based equity policies installed in more than 80 agencies.

Read more on The Federalist.

The real way to protect ‘trans kids’

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in United States v. Skrmetti, a case dealing with a Tennessee ban on transgender medical interventions for minors. The claim is that the ban qualifies as discrimination under the 14th Amendment and its equal protection clause. State Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice and ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, a biological woman and first transgender lawyer to appear before the Supreme Court, argued their respective sides before the justices. 

The decision will likely be handed down in June. Whatever the outcome, it will greatly affect the nation as 26 states have banned such treatments. It is one thing to allow unrestricted access to adults who seek to transition. Americans may disagree but do not bar them from making these and other adult-sized decisions. But when minors are involved, it is a different story entirely. 

Read more on the Washington Examiner.

Transgender youth doctor faces historic lawsuit: ‘Damage has been done’

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a leading figure in the field of transgender procedures for minors, is facing a landmark lawsuit filed by a female detransitioner who says she has been permanently harmed by treatment given to her before she even became a teenager.

The patient suing is Clementine Breen, a 20-year-old biological woman from California who began intensive procedures aimed at helping her identify as a boy starting from the age of 12. Breen says she began to cease her testosterone treatment around the age of 17 and now claims that rushed medical interventions under Olson-Kennedy’s advice caused irreversible harm.

“It’s no surprise yet another patient is speaking out against the irreparable harm she has caused. Minors struggling with mental health issues need compassionate counseling and support, not mutilation,” said Dr. Jared Ross, a board-certified physician and senior fellow at DNH.

Read more on the Washington Examiner.