In The News Archive - Page 23 of 50

Disturbing left-wing propaganda infects our medical schools

If there is one area of life you would hope might be off limits to the left-wing insanity ripping through the nation like wildfire, surely it would be the field of medicine. When it comes to your health, politics should not have anything to do with how you’re treated by your doctor.

Yet, a guest speaker, whose lecture was required by all first-year medical students at UCLA as part of their mandatory course on “structural racism,” said a prayer to “the ancestors” and “mama earth.” She went on to criticize private property and accuse “colonizers” of “pimp[ing] and play[ing] mama earth.” She concluded her talk by having the students get on their knees and touch “mama earth” with their fists while she prayed. Then later, according to a report in the Washington Free Beacon, she led the students in chanting, “Free, Free Palestine.”

Breast cancer surgeons must submit DEI statement for UC Davis job

California DEI University of California Davis School of Medicine Hospital System, Medical School Media Mention

Applicants for a job as a surgical oncologist must submit a “Statement of Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” to be considered at the University of California Davis.

“Contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion documented in the application file will be used to evaluate applicants,” the job listing for an “academic surgical oncologist/breast surgeon” states.

The job is with UC Davis’ surgery department in its health department.

University policy requires all faculty applicants to “submit a statement about their past, present, and future contributions to promoting equity, inclusion, and diversity in their professional careers.”

Stuck in Wokeness’s Waiting Room

Massachusetts DEI Op-Ed

The edifice of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), a reasonable-sounding concept that serves as a dog whistle for critical race theory and is premised on the claim that our country is systemically racist, is cracking. But the road to the dismantling of this illiberal, anti-science, racist, and now antisemitic ideology promises to be long and hard. There will be a lot of collateral damage in this battle, as DEI ideology has spread everywhere, including the medical field.

Examples abound. Just recently, medical colleagues of my generation watched in disbelief as first-year students at UCLA’s School of Medicine were forced to attend a mandatory lecture on structural racism given by Lisa Gray-Garcia in which they were led in chants of “Free Palestine” and told to kneel in prayer to “Mama Earth.” Gray-Garcia is not a physician. She is a self-proclaimed “formerly unhoused, incarcerated, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher and single mama.” She is a “Poverty Scholar” in UCLA’s Activist in Residence program. This is who UCLA is enlisting to educate future physicians.

Read more on National Review.

We were pushed to transition as teens — now we’re ‘vindicated’ by study showing kids grow out of it

Europe, United States Gender Ideology Media Mention

A study which finds gender-confused youth mostly grow out of it and a ban on puberty blockers in England are both being hailed as “vindication” by “detransitioners” — people who have gone back to their birth sex after transitioning as teenagers.

Detransitioners told The Post that they were living evidence for a major study in the Netherlands which found that what psychiatrists refer to as “gender dysphoria” — a desire to be the opposite sex — diminishes significantly between adolescence and early adulthood.

And the also backed a report in England where doctors were told to stop prescribing “puberty blocking” hormones after a bombshell audit of the country’s leading gender clinic, the Tavistock in London, found troubled teens were given the drugs without medical evidence that they were safe.

Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill Protecting Children From Transgender Surgeries

Kansas Gender Ideology Media Mention

The governor of Kansas vetoed a bill seeking to protect minors from gender transition surgeries, insisting that it “tramples parental rights.”

On Friday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed Substitute Bill for Senate Bill 233 prohibiting health care providers from performing transgender surgeries and procedures on children. The bill allows a civil cause of action against providers offering such treatments with professional disciplinary action taken against such individuals. The bill restricts the use of state funds to promote gender transition procedures. SB 233 also prohibits professional liability insurance firms from covering damages for health care providers offering gender transition procedures to children.

Philly med school will pursue ‘diverse workforce’ through scholarships, special programs

Pennsylvania DEI Medical School Media Mention

A Philadelphia medical school says it wants to create a “diverse workforce” by attracting students through special scholarships, mentoring, and other programs.

But in comments to The College Fix, a medical doctor criticized the idea that matching patients and doctors by race is beneficial.

The new dean of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University medical school says racial minority healthcare professionals can “alleviate health disparity,” according to a report paraphrasing his comments.

“One of the things that I intend to do is make the case that we need a diverse workforce and students, Dr. Said Ibrahim told WHYY, a PBS affiliate.

Critics warn schools are skirting Texas DEI ban after university shuffles DEI officials to other departments

Texas DEI Media Mention

Texas A&M University responded to a state law banning diversity, equity and inclusion on college campuses by giving the department head a raise before reassigning her and other employees to other departments. It sparked concerns schools are attempting to further “embed” the controversial practice at Texas universities despite the law.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning DEI on college campuses in June 2023. In the months that followed, documents obtained by Fox News Digital show Texas A&M reassigned several DEI employees to other departments, including the vice president of the program, who received a 10% raise, a new position and a nine-month paid leave.

UCLA med school cancels lecturing blaming ‘whiteness’ for opioid crisis

California DEI Media Mention

The University of California at Los Angeles Medical School recently canceled a scheduled lecture making the case that the American opioid crisis of the past two decades should be blamed on “whiteness.”

The topic was changed two days before the lecture was scheduled to take place and attendance was limited to in-person only, National Review reported.

Discrimination and Identity Politics Have No Place in Medical Education

United States DEI Media Mention

In 2019, Stanley Goldfarb, the former associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, wrote an article lamenting the change in his institution’s mission from training future doctors to treat every patient equally and nonjudgmentally to prioritizing “social justice.” In January, a Wall Street Journal editorial reported that students at the University of California School of Medicine are now required to take a course on “structural racism,” which segregates them by race, requiring them to withdraw to different areas and discuss anti-racist prompts. That same month, Jeffrey Flier, former dean of Harvard University Medical School, wrote a lengthy essay bemoaning the school’s curriculum changes. “In a rush to embed vague, contestable, and potentially harmful versions of social justice into medical education, we risk compromising the very foundation of medical training, and ultimately, patient care,” he concluded.

On March 19, Representative Greg Murphy, (R., N.C.), a medical doctor, introduced the Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education (EDUCATE) Act. The bill would cut off federal funding for medical schools that force students and faculty to adopt specific beliefs, take loyalty oaths, or discriminate against students or patients by implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) classes in their curricula.

Read more on National Review.

Boston hospital to scale back on child abuse and neglect reports that can perpetuate ‘structural racism’

Massachusetts DEI Hospital System Media Mention

A Boston, Massachusetts, hospital announced Tuesday that after finding Black mothers were more likely to be reported for child abuse and neglect if a toxicology report came back positive, it would be taking steps to reevaluate the process in order to avoid perpetuating “structural racism.”

“Black pregnant people are more likely to be drug tested and to be reported to child welfare systems than white pregnant people,” said Mass General Brigham, a nonprofit health care system.

“As a part of our United Against Racism effort to achieve health equity for patients and communities across our system, we… are addressing policies that may unwittingly perpetuate structural racism,” Mass General stated.

De-transitioner warns shareholders that Disney will pay a price for ‘stealing the voices of thousands of little Ariels’

United States Gender Ideology Media Mention

A victim of so-called “gender-affirming care” informed Disney shareholders Wednesday that the company may soon face lawsuits over its support of employees’ genital mutilations. Chloe Cole, a woman left permanently scarred by gender ideology, further stressed the importance of the company looking into providing benefits for those who seek to “detransition.”

Puberty blockers may NOT be reversible and could raise children’s risk of fertility problems and even cancer, Mayo Clinic study suggests

United States Gender Ideology Media Mention

Mayo Clinic experts say puberty blockers can lead to withering testicles, fertility problems and even cancer among the trans kids who take them, in the latest study to raise alarm about transgender medicine.

The findings cast doubt on the ‘reversibility’ of puberty blockers — a key claim of the trans activists who promote the drugs, saying they only ‘pause’ puberty and buy time for trans kids to make decisions about their gender.

Instead, researchers say puberty blockers hurt the development of testicles and sperm production in ways that are not fully reversible and could affect users’ ability to have children when they grow up.

Minority Contracting Comes to Medicine

Texas DEI Hospital System Media Mention

When public hospitals purchase medical equipment or rely on outside doctors, they typically consider the price and quality of each vendor.

In Tarrant County, Texas, they consider something else, too: the race and gender of the vendor’s owners.

Tarrant County’s public hospital system, JPS Health, evaluates bids for contracts on a 100-point scale that gives more weight to “diversity and inclusion” (15 points) than to the reputation of a vendor’s goods and services (10 points) when assessing providers of transcatheter heart valves—devices used to counteract cardiac failure and keep blood flowing throughout the body.

Read more on the Washington Free Beacon.

We Checked, And Don Lemon Told A Series Of Whoppers During The Elon Musk Interview

United States DEI Media Mention

Ex-CNN host Don Lemon pushed a variety of inaccuracies and straight up falsehoods during his widely circulated March interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Lemon cited unspecified “studies” or “evidence” at least 12 times during the hour-long interview, according to a Daily Caller review, specifically to support the liberal sacred cow of “Diversity Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) and the various initiatives that go along with the DEI belief system.

Lemon repeatedly insisted that there was “no evidence” medical schools and the airline industry were lowering their standards, DEI didn’t have negative effects and that diverse companies performed better. It turns out, Lemon appears to be inaccurate or incorrect on all these claims.

Detransitioner Chloe Cole warns Disney CEO Bob Iger that ‘lawsuits are coming’

United States Gender Ideology Media Mention

Gender activist Chloe Cole warned Disney about upcoming lawsuits at its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday.

She presented the “Gender-Based Compensation Gaps and Associated Risks” proposal that noted the Walt Disney Company’s medical benefits for employees cover gender dysphoria transitioning but does not provide medical care or insurance coverage for those who desire to “detransition.” Her proposal calls out the company’s “inequities” in compensation and benefits for employees across gender categories.

Cole posted a video of her comments on Wednesday at the Disney shareholder meeting discussing the proposal.

More Wokeness in Medicine

United States DEI Media Mention

Last year, I wrote for the magazine about the “rampant politicization of health care.” Thanks to greater government involvement in medicine, the ties between academia and the practice of medicine, and other pressures (with George Floyd’s death serving as a special catalyst), medical-school curricula, professional medical associations, and other aspects of the field increasingly reflect and transmit left-wing ideology.

Read more on National Review.

Disney Is About to Get Schooled at Its Shareholder Meeting

United States Gender Ideology Media Mention

Disney will be slammed at Wednesday’s shareholder meeting over its pro-“transgender” employment practices.

Healthcare accountability group Do No Harm, which works to counteract DEI trends in medicine, and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), an investor in The Walt Disney Company, will confront the multinational media corporation for allegedly discriminating against “de-transitioning” employees who are seeking reconstructive care in the aftermath of medical butchery.

“Disney pays for gender-transition treatments, but not de-transitioning care, and therefore, discriminates based on gender identity,” NLPC explains in a video released ahead of Disney’s annual meeting, where the conservative watchdog is set to submit a shareholder proposal demanding that the entertainment giant investigates its policies that allegedly exclude “de-transitioners.”

UCLA Medical School Abruptly Cancels Lecture Blaming ‘Whiteness’ for Opioid Crisis

California DEI Media Mention

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) medical school recently scheduled a lecture focused on the role “whiteness” played in driving the opioid crisis — but abruptly changed the topic of the lecture just two days before it was supposed to take place and limited attendance to in-person only.

Last week, UCLA health advertised an event with professor Dr. Helena Hansen titled, “Beyond Magic Bullets: Whiteness as a Structural Driver of the Opioid Crisis.” The Gold Humanism Honor Society sponsored the lecture, according to a poster obtained by National Review. The event was scheduled for April 4, in-person in the school’s Tamkin auditorium, with an option for Zoom attendance.

Read more on National Review.