The Kaiser Permanente health care system is violating civil rights laws by discriminating against prospective patients based on race through its Center for Black Health and Wellness, according to a new civil rights complaint from a medical watchdog group.
The complaint, filed by Do No Harm to the Office for Civil Rights division of Health and Human Services, claims that the branding around Kaiser’s primary health care center for black patients located in Portland, Oregon creates the perception that care is reserved exclusively for black people, even if patients of all races are technically welcome.
Read the full story in National Review.
A Michigan law firm, which previously blasted a lawsuit over its diversity scholarships as “completely frivolous,” has agreed to remove race-based language from its award criteria and end a lawsuit filed last November.
According to a joint announcement on Monday, the firm Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C. reached an agreement with Do No Harm and the American Alliance for Equal Rights to amicably resolve the case. The parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal on Feb. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Read the full story at The Washington Examiner.
Who says Democrats have learned their lesson about “gender-affirming” treatments for kids?
After the 2024 election, the party was reeling politically from its blind support of subjecting teenagers—even preteens—to a destructive cocktail of hormones and surgeries. But in Oregon, Democrats refuse to come to their senses. They’re considering a bill that would end transparency about gender treatments provided in the state.
Read the full op-ed at City Journal.
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm, also praised the legislation, saying, “While this Administration has made tremendous progress to stamp out the scandal of sex change interventions on minors, legislation is needed to permanently codify protections for vulnerable American adolescents. The Chloe Cole Act is designed to permanently end chemical and surgical damage to minors, which has proliferated to an alarming degree by those who peddle misinformation and practice pseudoscience. The evidence does not support these types of interventions that are harmful and often do irreversible damage. Do No Harm applauds the elected officials who are fighting to end the child sex-change industry.”
Read the full article at Townhall.com.
Editor’s Note: This comment originally appeared in response to an article published in JAMA Network Open titled “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Programs in Health Care Institutions.”
While the article “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Programs in Health Care Institutions” evaluates DEI programs, it does not evaluate whether these programs improve patient care. Instead, it treats DEI as an axiomatic requirement for addressing disparities and fostering trust, and measures success by institutional compliance with prescribed administrative actions. This shifts the focus from clinical benefit to organizational behavior, leaving the study unable to determine whether DEI initiatives help patients.
Read the full comment and article at JAMA Network Open.
Medical advocacy group Do No Harm praised Levine for asking how academic medical centers became so entwined with “high-risk interventions on minors” in spite of “standards designed to ensure evidence-based practice, ethics, and patient welfare.”
Chief Medical Officer Kurt Micelli said accreditors are “prioritizing political ideologies” over “high-quality clinical care.” He co-wrote Do No Harm’s report in December rebutting the Utah Department of Health and Human Services’ defense of “pediatric medical transition.”
Read the full story at Just the News.
“There is no evidence to justify maintaining these hormone levels over prolonged periods of time. The vast medical literature on this topic shows that these hormonal treatments did not produce the desired effect of improving psychological well-being,” Do No Harm chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb told The Daily Wire. “Moreover, they are involved with all of the unfortunate side effects, including the potential for sterility as well as a number of genital problems associated with prolonged exposure to contra-sex hormones.”
Read the full story at the Daily Wire.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) did something rare in organized medicine: it changed course.
In its new position statement on gender surgery for minors, ASPS acknowledged that its understanding has shifted given recent, comprehensive evidence reviews. That willingness to revisit assumptions, confront uncertainty, and prioritize patient welfare is what medical professionalism requires. The American Medical Association (AMA), Endocrine Society, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and American Psychiatric Association (APA) should follow suit, recognizing that concerns extend beyond surgery to the entire spectrum of pediatric medical transition.
Read the full op-ed in the Daily Caller.
President Trump’s crusade against DEI has brought to light another crisis: the dramatic decline of medical education. For years, medical schools have emphasized discrimination and indoctrination at the expense of merit and excellence, to the detriment of patients. While the Trump administration has taken steps to right this wrong, a more far-reaching response is needed. For the sake of every American’s health, the president should reform the accreditation system for medical schools.
Read the full op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
The president’s recent push to send federal health care dollars directly to individuals, rather than insurers, reflects a broader demand for transparency and effectiveness in how public funds are used. Government‑funded medical research, which forms the foundation of much clinical care, also requires such scrutiny. In recent years, academic medicine has advanced a nebulous theory of “structural racism” that echoes the 19th‑century miasma idea which blamed disease on “bad air.” Despite scant evidence, studies attempting to validate this vague framework have multiplied, often funded by largely unaware taxpayers. Refocusing federal research dollars on rigorous science and evidence-based care is essential to correcting this trajectory.
Read the full op-ed in RealClear Politics here.
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, the chair of Do No Harm, praised the society for its statement, saying that it was the first major medical society to disavow the procedures for kids.
“High praise to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for taking an important step toward ending the unscientific and harmful practice of sex-rejecting procedures on minors,” he said. “The ASPS’s thoughtful, scientific, and well-reasoned statement today is a model for other medical organizations—namely the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and others—to follow and disavow their previous support for experimental and unscientific interventions. This fight is not over, and we will continue to protect American children by exposing any organization that spreads gender lies.”
Read the full story at the Daily Wire.
“High praise to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for taking an important step toward ending the unscientific and harmful practice of sex-rejecting procedures on minors,” Chairman of Do No Harm, a medical advocacy group that opposes so-called gender-affirming surgery, Stanley Goldfarb said. “The ASPS becomes the first major medical organization to support evidence-based and ethical medicine and reject, in their words, these harmful and irreversible procedures. The ASPS’s thoughtful, scientific, and well-reasoned statement today is a model for other medical organizations — namely the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and others — to follow and disavow their previous support for experimental and unscientific interventions.
Read the full story at National Review.
Editor’s note: This comment, “Concerns about the Study’s Methodology, Interpretations, and Conclusions,” is in response to a study published in JAMA Network Open titled “Cumulative Lifespan Stress, Inflammation, and Racial Disparities in Mortality Between Black and White Adults.”
While the authors’ intent to investigate potential mechanisms underlying health inequities is commendable, I have concerns about the study’s methodology, interpretations, and conclusions that warrant discussion. Specifically, the evidence presented does not sufficiently support the claim that systemic discrimination, via stress pathways, directly shortens lives in Black communities. Instead, the findings appear to restate well-established correlations between socioeconomic disadvantage, health challenges, and poorer outcomes without adequately addressing confounding factors or establishing causality.
Read the full comment at JAMA Network Open.
Throughout contemporary medical discourse, health disparities among racial and ethnic groups are often attributed to systemic and structural racism. Furthermore, organizations such as the American Medical Association assert that race itself is a social construct and urge a shift away from viewing race as a “biological risk factor” toward a “deeper understanding of racism as a determinant of health.” Unfortunately, this framing rings hollow and obscures an important fact: Biology can significantly shape health outcomes and disparities. Ignoring this reality only hinders our understanding of why different groups experience distinct patterns of illness and well-being and, in turn, how to treat them most effectively. Put plainly, biology may well be the root cause of these health disparities, and dismissing it comes at the expense of patients.
Read the full article at KevinMD.com.
The Utah House Health and Human Services Committee heard comments Tuesday for and against a ban on gender-changing procedures for minors.
Introduced by state Rep. Rex P. Shipp, R-Iron County, House Bill 174 prohibits giving cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to minors unless specific circumstances are met. HB 174 would also require health care professionals to initiate treatment plans for minors that want to end cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers.
Those testifying before the committee included patient advocate Chloe Cole. A native of California, Cole began to transition to a male at the age of 12 and later changed her mind. Now a young adult working for Do No Harm, Cole has been traveling the country to speak against surgeries and medications for people with gender dysphoria.
Read the full story in The Center Square.
A prominent medical watchdog group is pushing back against a widely cited study claiming racially diverse medical facilities improve outcomes for Black patients, arguing the research is being used to justify race-based diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies despite failing to prove its central claim.
Do No Harm, a nonprofit organization focused on opposing ideological influence in medicine, released a report Tuesday disputing a recent study by economists Michael Frakes and Jonathan Gruber that suggests increasing the share of Black physicians in military medical facilities leads to better outcomes for Black patients.
Read the full story at Fox News.
Why do the left’s biggest priorities need to be cloaked in manipulation and even outright lies?
That was the question 15 years ago as Democrats desperately tried to pass Obamacare. They succeeded, and in 2013, the law’s primary architect acknowledged that deceiving the American public was key.
Jonathan Gruber, speaking on a panel he surely thought would never be made public, declared that Obamacare “was written in a tortured way” to ensure “a lack of transparency.” That way, he said, Democrats could take advantage of the “stupidity of the American voter.”
Read the full op-ed in The Washington Times.