Report targets Florida over transgender treatment plan

TALLAHASSEE – National medical and authorized researchers have issued a report condemning Florida well being officers’ plan to dam Medicaid protection for gender-dysphoria remedies, saying the transfer lacks “any persuasive scientific or medical justification.”

The state Agency for Health Care Administration in June rolled out a proposed rule that may forestall Medicaid reimbursements for remedies similar to puberty-blocking treatment and hormone remedy for transgender individuals. 

The company final week held a raucous listening to on the plan, with one supporter of the proposal decrying the remedies as “crimes against humanity” and others saying they need to be outlawed altogether.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration supported the proposal in a June 2 report whose authors included docs and researchers who oppose medical take care of gender dysphoria. 

The state report mentioned the Medicaid program “has determined that the research supporting sex reassignment treatment is insufficient to demonstrate efficacy and safety.”

But seven scientists and a Yale regulation professor have countered with a report that mentioned the state examine’s “conclusions are incorrect and scientifically unfounded.”

The crucial report was launched by Yale School of Medicine researchers and professors, together with two who work for the Yale Pediatric Gender Program; a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor of pediatrics and pediatric endocrinology; a University of Texas Southwestern psychiatry professor who works as a psychologist on the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas; and a Yale Law School professor.

“The June 2 report purports to be a review of the scientific and medical evidence but is, in fact, fundamentally unscientific,” the researchers wrote. 

“We are alarmed that Florida’s health care agency has adopted a purportedly scientific report that so blatantly violates the basic tenets of scientific inquiry. The report makes false statements and contains glaring errors regarding science, statistical methods, and medicine.”

The researchers mentioned the state examine ignores “established science” and as an alternative “relies on biased and discredited sources, stereotyping, and purported ‘expert’ reports that carry no scientific weight.”

The DeSantis administration blasted the critique.

“This is simply another example of the left-wing academia propaganda machine arrogantly demanding you follow their words and not the clear evidence-based science sitting right in front of you,” Agency for Health Care Administration spokesman Brock Juarez mentioned in an e-mail. 

“The Yale ‘review’ is a hodgepodge of baseless claims using ‘expert opinions’ that lack any sort of real authority or scientific credibility.”

The proposed rule got here because the DeSantis administration and Republican leaders all through the nation goal transgender points upfront of the 2022 elections. 

The Florida Department of Health in April launched pointers that mentioned treatment similar to puberty-blocking treatment and hormone remedy shouldn’t be used for transgender youths.

But federal officers and a number of medical organizations, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and clinicians have mentioned gender-affirming care is the accepted normal of care among the many medical group that treats adolescents and adults with gender dysphoria.

The federal authorities defines gender dysphoria as clinically “significant distress that a person may feel when sex or gender assigned at birth is not the same as their identity.”

Under Florida’s proposed rule, which must be finalized, the Medicaid program wouldn’t cowl puberty-blocking treatment, hormones and hormone “antagonists,” sex-reassignment surgical procedures, and any “other procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics.”

But the researchers from Yale and the opposite establishments mentioned the state report justifying the proposal is a “flawed analysis” that depends on “pseudo-science” by authors whose “testimony has been disqualified in court and who have known ties to anti-LGBTQ advocacy groups.”

The state’s examine is grounded in a literature assessment by Romina Brignardello-Petersen and Wojtek Wiercioch, who concluded that “there is great uncertainty about the effects” of sex-reassignment remedies and that the “evidence alone is not sufficient to support” utilizing such remedies.

The 28-page report by the researchers from Yale and the opposite establishments mentioned Brignardello-Petersen additionally has performed analysis for the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, an activist group that opposes normal medical take care of gender dysphoria.

The state report “looks very scientific on its face,” Yale regulation professor Anne Alstott instructed The News Service of Florida in a phone interview.

“But if you dig in and really look at their sources, an unbelievable amount of their sourcing is to opinion pieces, letters to the editor, they cited a student blog and one of the quote-unquote experts that they hired is a dentist,” mentioned Alstott, one of many important authors of the report criticizing the state proposal.

The crucial report additionally famous {that a} doc authored by one of many state’s specialists, Canadian analysis scientist, and psychologist James Cantor, was “nearly identical” to what gave the impression to be Cantor’s paid testimony in a West Virginia lawsuit involving laws barring transgender athletes from sports activities groups. 

Cantor labored on the case for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a corporation that opposes authorized protections for transgender individuals and same-sex marriage and “defends the criminalization of sexual activity between partners of the same sex,” in accordance with the Yale group’s report.

The state additionally relied on pediatric endocrinologist Quentin Van Meter, who has advocated for “conversion therapy,” which seeks to vary sexual or gender identities of LGBTQ individuals. 

The follow has been discredited by main components of the medical group.

The authors of the state report additionally didn’t disclose whether or not they had been paid for his or her analysis, Alstott mentioned. Juarez didn’t reply to questions searching for information about whether or not they had acquired compensation.

Alstott referred to as such conflict-of-interest disclosures a “norm of science.”

Juarez, nevertheless, mocked the criticism of the state report.

“We firmly stand by our five evidence-, rather than eminence-, based reports from subject-matter experts, including health care researchers who studied the quality of the evidence that the health-care machine relies upon for ‘gender affirming’ care,” he mentioned.

While the proposed rule would have an effect on the Medicaid program, critics worry it might be a primary step towards adopting extra insurance policies focusing on transgender treatment that different states have embraced.

For instance, Alabama and Arkansas have handed legal guidelines banning gender-affirming treatment for minors. 

The legal guidelines are being challenged in court docket.

In Texas, state well being officers have opened investigations into dad and mom who present gender-affirming care to their youngsters.

Alstott echoed different critics’ issues that such insurance policies will be particularly dangerous for what she referred to as a “doubly vulnerable” inhabitants.

“They face violence. They face discrimination. And the portion of the transgender population that are on Medicaid are, by definition, financially distressed as well, so it’s almost hard to imagine a more vulnerable and targeted population,” she mentioned.

Alstott mentioned Florida’s proposed Medicaid rule is discriminatory and violates the state’s personal regulatory pointers.

“It violates the U.S. Constitution. It violates the Florida Constitution. It violates federal statutory law preventing discrimination and it violates Florida statutory law preventing discrimination,” she instructed the News Service. 

“So there are at least four legal claims off the bat. And what’s so frustrating is this kind of discriminatory policy is illegal, but the state is barreling ahead with it.”