'Reprehensible and immoral': Medical groups sued for hitting children with 'gender procedures' for financial gain * WorldNetDaily * by Bob Unruh
(Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks)
Mat Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel, which long has worked to oppose the damaging ideology of transgenderism used against children, had a response following word that Florida is suing three medical groups allegedly engaging “in deceptive practices for financial gain when promoting irreversible gender procedures on children.”
“This lawsuit by the state of Florida is about holding the medical purveyors of harmful gender ideology accountable for irreversibly hurting children,” Staver explained.
“Medical organizations have a responsibility to ensure that the standards of care they promote are grounded in sound science and transparency. This case is about protecting vulnerable children from irreversible medical interventions that will not deliver the benefits they have been promised. These experimental procedures need to be banned nationwide.”
It was Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier who sued over the procedures for profit.
He is seeking a judgment declaring the promotion of sex-rejecting procedures as both misleading and as “a pattern of racketeering activity.”
The state is seeking a civil penalty of $1 million from each group, including the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It was brought in court in St. Lucie Countuy.
Also sought are $10,000 penalties “for each false claim” the groups have made regarding the “safety, efficacy, and reversibility of these procedures.”
At issue are alleged violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.
The announcement from Liberty Counsel explained, “The state accuses these organizations of deceptive acts and racketeering by conducting a ‘coordinated campaign’ to ‘mislead patients, parents, insurers, regulators, and courts’ about the ‘safety, reversibility, and efficacy’ of these interventions on gender-confused children.”
The claims apparently are based on “weak” and “flawed” evidence and are used against “gender-confused minors” to mask the risks and make a profit.
““[The Organizations’] reprehensible and immoral actions capitalize on the mental distress of children—as well as the natural affections and fears [of] their parents—to help their members sell lucrative surgeries and drugs that irreversibly mutilate and chemically alter children’s bodies without providing any credible medical benefit,” the case charges. “In their wake is a growing number of ‘detransitioners’ who feel ‘butchered by institutions [they] thought [they] could trust.'”
Analysts from Finland, Sweden and the U.S. have found “puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilating surgeries do not improve a child’s mental health, but rather interfere with normal puberty and remove healthy body parts causing irreversible damage.”
Uthmeier said, “For years, these groups insisted the recommendations were settled science, but behind closed doors, they knew the evidence was weak. Parents were not told the full story. In fact, some parents were told that if they didn’t put their kids through permanent, life-altering, sick procedures like double mastectomies and castration, that their child would commit suicide.”
A report from Florida Politics said the lawsuit isn’t about individual treatments but the groups’ “general practices.”
And the report confirms that while children do feel “anxious” during adolescence, those feelings mostly go away after puberty.
The article noted a better treatment would be family therapy and individual counseling.
“So, rather than attempting to resolve the underlying causes of psychological distress, defendants developed a treatment protocol that irreversibly alters children’s bodies to conform to their anxieties,” the lawsuit charges.
Bob Unruh