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.”
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 It also rescinded orders from the Biden administration indicating it was discrimination for federally funded health programs to refuse to treat someone on the basis of their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.
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