Rubio demands transparency as NIH seems to hide effects of ‘gender-affirming care’
Study results suppressed, 'allegedly out of fear of political repercussions'
The National Institutes of Health could be hiding the effect of puberty blockers, drugs that often are given to minors as part of so-called gender-affirming care, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suggested Monday in a letter to the agency’s director obtained by The Daily Signal.
In his letter to NIH Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, Rubio draws particular attention to an NIH-funded study by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a physician who is the medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Despite the Obama administration’s decision to support Olson-Kennedy’s study more than nine years ago, the findings have yet to be released, allegedly out of fear of the political repercussions.
Rubio writes that Olson-Kennedy was part of a group of researchers who received nearly $6 million from NIH to study physical and mental health outcomes for children who receive puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatments as part of “transitioning” to the opposite sex.
Olson-Kennedy outlined a few of her findings in a 2020 report that said approximately a quarter of the children in the study who received these transgender medical treatments were experiencing depression or suicidal ideation.
“According to [Olson-Kennedy], she fears the findings will be used to show that puberty blockers do not improve the mental health of youth,” Rubio writes.
If Olson-Kennedy’s NIH-funded findings are being suppressed, Rubio writes, the physician is “masquerad[ing] political ideology under a veil of scientific legitimacy.”
In response to the potential coverup, Rubio demands that the National Institutes of Health investigate Olson-Kennedy and other researchers in the group to discover whether they are willfully withholding information on the damaging effects of puberty blockers and how left-wing political biases might affect the quality of published NIH research.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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