Answers Sought on NIH Transgender 'Experiments' Study

Republican congressmen sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday, demanding answers about a study on experimental medical interventions for youth who claim to be transgender in which two of the participants committed suicide, 11 experienced suicidal ideation, and others were likely sterilized by the drugs they were given, The Daily Signal reported.

"It is sickening that the federal government is preying on young people and using our taxpayer dollars to advance its radical gender ideology," Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., told The Daily Signal in a statement on the letter, which was sent by 15 GOP senators and representatives. "We are rightfully demanding answers from NIH and we are committed to holding those responsible accountable for this tragic loss of life."

The NIH granted almost half a million dollars in a five-year grant to the Boston Children's Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco, and the Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago for the study, which the New England Journal of Medicine published in January.

It analyzed 315 participants, identified as transgender and nonbinary, between the ages of 12 and 20, over a two-year period. Participants received "gender-affirming hormones," i.e. hormones to make their male or female bodies resemble bodies of the opposite sex, according to The Daily Signal.

In the letter, the Republicans express "grave concerns" about the study, noting that 240 of the 315 participants were minors.

They also cite a report from the medical organization Do No Harm, which found the study "fatally flawed and borderline unscientific."

The GOP letter noted that "the researchers admitted that they were not able to properly establish causality between the administration of cross-sex hormones and improved psychosocial functioning, because their study lacked a control group."

In addition, the letter pointed out "the four clinics and some of the researchers who conducted this experiment are outspoken advocates for conducting gender transition interventions on children. In a video it later removed from its YouTube channel, Boston Children's Hospital, one of the clinics involved, went as far as to claim that children can know their gender identity 'from the womb.'"

The letter also charged that "24 participants in this study received cross-sex hormones after puberty suppression or 'in early puberty' and are likely sterile as a result. Further, participants are now at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, blood clotting, and a list of other complications."

The Republicans said they "are deeply concerned about your agency's use of taxpayer dollars to advance experiments on children who will be irreversibly harmed by radical gender ideology."

The letter also demanded responses to 14 questions by June 9, including the ages of the two people who died by suicide, where they received "treatment," and when the researchers at that site told other researchers of the suicides.

The letter also requests that the NIH "list the steps that were taken to halt and review the study after the first and second deaths," and whether other participants were notified of the suicides. They also ask whether other participants and their parents were given the chance to withdraw from the study after the suicides.

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