The Trump administration is rescinding a Biden-era directive protecting hospitals from investigations and signaled that beefed-up protections for medical whistleblowers would be forthcoming.
The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) announced Friday it would be rescinding an executive order issued by former President Joe Biden in March 2022, which, among other things, gave hospitals the right not to comply with state-level investigations related to their provision of transgender medical treatments to minors.
Trump’s directive eliminates these protections, and the rescission notice indicates that further safeguards for medical whistleblowers are anticipated in the future.
‘Under the Biden regime, the door for whistleblowers was closed,’ said Dr. Eithan Haim, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration after he leaked documents to the media that revealed Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston was performing transgender medical procedures on minors, even after it said it had stopped. ‘It was a complete inversion of the role of HHS, the role of our legal framework, because the criminal entities were being protected and the individuals exposing criminal entities were now the ones being targeted.’
Haim was indicted last year by Biden’s Department of Justice for blowing the whistle on Texas Children’s Hospital, after it continued to provide transgender medical treatments to minors even though the hospital had publicly indicated it had stopped such services in order to comply with new state guidance. Several days after President Donald Trump was sworn in, the charges against Haim were dropped.
Under Biden’s March 2022 directive, titled, ‘HHS Notice and Guidance on Gender Affirming Care, Civil Rights and Patient Privacy,’ hospitals were permitted, but not required, to comply with investigations seeking information on their provision of transgender treatments. But, according to HHS’s rescission notice, such guidance lacked ‘adequate legal basis under federal privacy laws.’ The notice added that, ‘by its own terms,’ Biden’s March 2022 directive ‘permits’ the release of personal health information tied to transgender procedures when it is needed to comply with other laws.
‘Covered entities should no longer rely on the rescinded 2022 OCR Notice and Guidance,’ stated HHS’ rescission notice. It added that ‘in consultation with the Attorney General’ the agency will also be ‘expeditiously’ issuing new guidance to protect whistleblowers who take action in accordance with Trump’s efforts to protect children ‘from chemical and surgical mutilation.’
Haim said that under Trump’s new leadership, the U.S. legal system is being restored ‘to a place of equal protection under law, particularly as it relates to people who are trying to follow [Trump’s] executive order, or any other federal laws.’
‘The key thing with this new directive is that, as a healthcare provider, if a hospital or other doctors are participating in misconduct, if they’re lying about something, if they are intervening on patients in a way that is harmful to those patients – especially kids – as a doctor, it’s not only something you should do, it’s something you have to do,’ Haim pointed out.
In addition to compelling hospitals and gender clinics to begin rigorous compliance with investigations, the Trump administration’s Friday directive also removed gender dysphoria from being considered a disability under the federal Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. It also rescinded orders from the Biden administration indicating it was discrimination for federally funded health programs to refuse to treat someone on the basis of their gender identity.
Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.