The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday unsealed an indictment against Dr. Eithan Haim, who last year leaked evidence of cross-sex hormone procedures being performed at a Texas hospital despite the facility claiming to have halted them, with the surgeon facing four felony counts for alleged violations of a medical-records law that could land him in prison for up to 10 years.
The DOJ announced on June 17 that it had charged Dr. Haim for obtaining protected individual health information for patients who were not under his care, allegedly acting without authorization and with intent to cause malicious harm to Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH).
The controversy centers on the fact that TCH, the largest children’s hospital in the country, publicly declared in March 2022 that it was halting “hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services” for minors, citing potential legal and criminal liability after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that prescription of puberty blockers was “child abuse” under Texas law.
Documents leaked by Dr. Haim purportedly showed that the hospital continued to perform some “gender-affirming” therapies after the announcement, including one procedure on an 11-year-old three days after it made the declaration.
Ultimately, Texas legislators adopted a ban on sex-change procedures and puberty blocker prescriptions for children, which went into effect in mid-2023 after a legal challenge. TCH declared that year that it would no longer offer any transgender medical procedures for children.
Dr. Haim, who was set to make a court appearance on June 17 before U.S. Magistrate Yvonne Y. Ho in Houston, faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine if convicted on charges of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
A request for comment on Dr. Haim’s indictment sent to TCH public relations department was not immediately returned.
Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, who announced Dr. Haim’s indictment, said in a statement that the “defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.”
On June 16, a day before he was set to head to court, Dr. Haim issued a message about the case.
“We will face down those who are committed to corrupting our institutions and who are destroying the future my daughter deserves,” he wrote in a post on X. “So to all the fathers out there, I would say one thing. We can never submit to our children’s destroyers, we must fight relentlessly to preserve their dignity, and we must be ready to sacrifice for their future.”
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Last year, Dr. Haim anonymously leaked evidence to City Journal’s Christopher Rufo that TCH was conducting transgender treatments on minors in the days after publicly announcing in 2022 that it would no longer be offering such procedures.
“After assessing the Attorney General’s and Governor’s actions, Texas Children’s Hospital paused hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services. This step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications,” TCH said in a March 2022 statement to media outlets.
That came after the Texas attorney general in February 2022 released an opinion from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that certain procedures done on minors “such as castration, fabrication of a ‘penis’ using tissue from other body parts, fabrication of a ’vagina‘ involving the removal of male sex organs, prescription of puberty-suppressors and infertility-inducers, and the like are all ’abuse' under section 261.001 of the Texas Family Code.”
In its statement announcing a pause on certain “gender-affirming” therapies, TCH said its mission is “to create a healthier future for all children, including transgender children, within the bounds of the law.”
Mr. Rufo’s article cited the documents provided by Dr. Haim and concluded that despite TCH’s announcement, it hadn’t stopped performing transgender procedures on minors including the use of implantable puberty blockers.
Mr. Rufo’s article cited TCH spokeswoman Kelley Carville as declining comment at the time.
A request for comment on the case sent to Ms. Carville was not immediately returned.
In a follow-up article, Mr. Rufo wrote that “nothing in the information provided to me identified any individual” and that the documents provided by Dr. Haim had been “carefully redacted.”
Mr. Rufo cited one of Dr. Haim’s attorneys, Marcella Burke, as expressing confidence that the trial would end with her client being declared innocent.
