Medical Establishment Loathes Anti–Affirmative-Action Case
Fauci Didn’t Practice the ‘Love’ for Adversaries He Now Preaches
What the Homeless Owe Us
U.K. Medical Society Goes ‘Neutral’ on Euthanasia as Quebec Expands Eligibility
California Is Waging an Ever-More-Aggressive LGBT Culture War
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on the Need for a COVID Response Truth Commission
The COVID pandemic has been one of the most politically and culturally divisive events in American history. Adding to our woes, the proper approach to scientific inquiry and policy makers’ relationship with the expert class became badly skewed. Once an orthodoxy was declared by the World Health Organization or the Center for Disease Control, government leaders, the mainstream media, and Big Tech circled the wagons to prevent dissenting views from being aired — and even sought to punish those with differing opinions. This included attacking the Great Barrington Declaration — authored by notable epidemiologists, that challenged the efficacy of societal shutdowns and keeping children out of school. Now, with the COVID emergency at an end, two of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration and other notables in medicine have organized the Norfolk Group, calling for a national commission to investigate the country’s response to COVID. One of these experts is Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research. He holds an MD and PhD in economics, both earned at Stanford University, where he directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Dr. Bhattacharya’s recent research focuses on the epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic. In December 2022, Bhattacharya was appointed by Florida Governor and now presidential candidate Ron DeSantis to the Public Health Integrity Committee, charged with assessing federal decisions, recommendations, and guidance related to public health and health care.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s Next Big Idea
The Push Has Started to Let Adults Have Sex With Adolescents
Stephen B. Levine M.D. on the Science of Gender-Affirming Care
The United States has become the world’s most adamant promoter of what is now called “gender-affirming care” for children and adolescents who identify as being other than their born sex. This approach ranges from “social affirmation”—the use of preferred pronouns, for example—to “medical affirmation,” such as puberty blocking, to radical “surgical affirmation,” meaning mastectomies, facial feminization or masculinization cosmetic procedures, and, in a few cases, even genital removal and refashioning. Beginning to “transition” youth while they are still immature remains intensely controversial. But the increasingly woke medical establishment and Biden administration claim that the gender-affirming approach is “settled science” and the only efficacious approach to treating these children, calling those who disagree “science deniers.” My expert guest today says not so fast. Psychiatrist Stephen B. Levine has co-authored an important paper that details the paucity of reliable data establishing the benefits gender transitioning during a patient’s youth, calling into significant question the current approach to caring for anguished children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Stephen B. Levine is a psychiatrist known for his work in human sexuality, particularly, sexual dysfunction and transgenderism. Levine earned his MD from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and serves as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry there. He was co-editor for the section on sexual and gender identity disorders in the professional text Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders. Although much of his work is written for other clinicians, Levine has also written books for a lay audience, including Solving Common Sexual Problems and Sexuality in Mid-Life (2004). Levine also served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. Current Concerns About Gender-Affirming Therapy in Adolescents (springer.com) Informed Consent for Transgendered Patients – PubMed (nih.gov) Illuminate Life Processes by Taking a Sexual History (psychiatrictimes.com) https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2046221 https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2136117 https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2150346 ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Approach Undercut by New Scientific Study | National Review