The Daily Signal - #458: A Pediatrician Explains How 'Dangerous' Equality Act Would Force Doctors to 'Do Harm'

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

Doctors who are uncomfortable prescribing hormone treatments or doing gender reassignment surgeries could soon potentially be in violation of federal law, warns Dr. Michelle Cretella, a pediatrician and executive director of the American College of Pediatricians. And they’re not the only ones at risk: Parents, too, could find themselves unable to decide on their own child’s medical treatment. We also cover these stories:--The U.S. seizes a North Korean ship.--President Donald Trump pledges to take action to end surprise medical billing.--Colorado teens walk out of a vigil following a school shooting when politicians start advocating gun control.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, May 10th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Michelle Kirtella is a pediatrician who's seen her field transform from the inside as the medical community moves toward affirming gender transition for kids. She's chosen to speak out. Today, she'll join us on the podcast. By the way, if you're a fan of this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and please subscribe. Now on to our top news.

Well, North Korea launched two more test missiles on Thursday, further complicating the path ahead for nuclear negotiations. North Korea had launched a previous missile on Saturday. The two latest missiles come just as the U.S. announced that it seized a North Korean cargo ship for allegedly violating sanctions. The ship was first attained last year by Indonesia for improper documentation. It was being used to transport coal and heavy machinery between China and North Korea and was planning to make a stop in Russia. The Justice Department said this violated longstanding U.S. law and U.N. Security Council resolutions. The ship is now being transferred to U.S. authorities. President Trump announced Thursday he will soon be announcing more details on how to end surprise medical bills.

In my state of the union address, I ask Congress to pass legislation to protect American patients for too long. Surprise billings, which has been a tremendous problem in this country, has left some patients. with thousands of dollars of unexpected and unjustified charges for services they did not know anything about. And sometimes services they did not have any information on. They weren't told by the doctor. They weren't told by the hospitals and the areas they were going to. And they get what we call a surprise bill,

not a pleasant surprise, a very unpleasant surprise. So this must end. We're going to hold insurance companies in hospitals, and hospitals totally accountable. Trump is urging both parties in Congress to come up with a legislative solution to this that would require greater transparency. Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared

in no uncertain terms on Thursday that America is in a constitutional crisis. She was agreeing with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who had just led a committee vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over his refusal to cooperate with a subpoena. Here's what Pelosi said in a press conference.

Also, do you agree with Chairman Nadler that the country is currently in a constitutional crisis? Yes, I do agree with Chairman Nadler because the administration has decided that they are not going to honor their oaths of office. Now, he's staked out because he has seen so much in the committee work. I'm very proud of the Judiciary Committee and the work that they have done. And certain of timing, when we're ready, we'll come to the floor. And we'll just see it because there may be some other contempt of Congress issues that we want to deal with at the same time. And he wants to do it as soon as possible and so do we.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want to ban credit card companies from charging more than 15 percent interest. Ocasio Cortez and Sanders said in a statement, today's loan sharks wear expensive suits and work on Wall Street, where they make hundreds of millions of dollars in total compensation by charging sky-high fees in usurious interest rates. The two are also proposing, per Bloomberg News, that post offices be able to do some banking functions

like offer loans and savings accounts. Well, Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, says it's time for government to step in and break up the social network. He says Facebook has become too powerful and that Mark Zuckerberg needs to be held accountable. Now, keep in mind, Hughes is the earliest Facebook collaborator. He and Zuckerberg started it together in their Harvard dorm. He took to the pages of the New York Times Thursday, writing, I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for cliques.

He also said, quote, We are a nation with a tradition of reigning in monopolies, no matter how well-intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented. and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook, end of quote. Joe Grecht, who claims to be the dad of two of the teenage girls harassed by Pennsylvania Democrat and State Representative Brian Sims outside the Planned Parenthood is raising money

for a pro-life charity, Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia. Quote, Representative Sims offered $100 to anyone who would identify these teenage girls for him. Instead of 100, let's join together to donate 100,000 to the pro-life movement, wrote Correct. So far, his GoFundMe has raised $105,000 for the Philadelphia Pro-Life Organization. Well, it looks like Colorado isn't done legalizing drugs. On Wednesday, the city of Denver voted to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms. The measure passed with just over 50%, though absentee balance will continue to be counted until May 16th. Colorado and Washington State became the first two states in the union to legalize recreational marijuana back in 2012.

Since then, marijuana use in Colorado among adults has only risen. Federal law continues to prohibit the sale or use of marijuana, so these local measures essentially tell police not to arrest people for a federal offense. Students at a Colorado high school were apparently furious after they felt a vigil for a victim became all about politics. Mental health! Mental health! That soundbite is via reporter for Colorado Public Radio, Jenny Brendan. Kyle Clark, an anchor at the NBC,

the Denver affiliate tweeted, STEM school students walked out of a vigil tonight after Representative Jason Crow and Senator Michael Bennett spoke. Students said their grief was being politicized. They later returned, took the mic, and some said they didn't want to be used to promote gun control. End quote. The shooting occurred Tuesday at STEM Highlands Ranch School in Colorado.

One man, Kendrick Castillo, was killed, and eight other students were injured. Well, Chick-fil-A gets a lot of hate from the left, but it gets even more love from a customer base that's rapidly growing. The Wall Street Journal reports that Chick-fil-A will now become the third largest U.S. restaurant chain behind McDonald's and Starbucks, according to data from Technomic Incorporated. Chick-fil-A sales have tripled over the last decade from $3 billion in 2008 to more than $10 billion last year. Chick-fil-A senior director Mark Morotakis told the Wall Street Journal,

quote, slow and steady. It's paid off for us, end quote. Chick-fil-A's appeal will be tested in the coming years as the franchise looks to expand to new regions of the country. Sorry to make you all hungry. You know, as a former Chick-fil-A employee, I very much appreciate this. I think the chicken combined with, and the milkshakes combined with the My Pleasure is the perfect touch. And I will actually say Chick-Fillay employees always seem to be enjoying their jobs and super polite. So, good for employment. Next up, we'll be talking to Dr. Michelle Crittal. about her concerns about the Equality Act.

Do you own an Amazon Echo? You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily Alexa Flash briefing. It's easy to do. Just open your Amazon Alexa app, go to settings, and select Flash Briefing. From there, you can search for the Daily Signal podcast and add it to your Flash briefing

so you can stay up to date with the top news of the day that the liberal media isn't covering. We're joined today by Dr. Michelle Critella, a pediatrician and executive director of the American College of Pediatricians. Dr. Cotella, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me here. Okay, so we're looking at the Equality Act, which is legislation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have been advocating for.

It would essentially make sexual orientation and gender identity classes that you can't discriminate against. Dr. Cotella, what do you think about this legislation? This is very dangerous legislation in that it literally, mandates that health professionals do harm to people. To understand why this act says that a health professional cannot deny treatment to a person based on their gender identity. Now, at first blush, people may say, well, what's wrong with that?

The problem is this. a person who identifies as trans can very readily and easily go and access medical care for a common cold, an ankle sprain, etc. The issue is when they go into a doctor's office and say, for example, a woman goes in and says, I identify as a man. I want you, my OBGYN to perform a hysterectomy. take my healthy uterus out of my healthy body. That's forcing a physician to violate his oath to first do no harm. Now, the transgender activists claim that, oh, no, these transgender surgeries, removing reproductive organs, putting them on hormones is life-saving.

It's simply not true. That is not what the science shows. As a matter of fact, the Center for Medicare. and Medicaid services under the Obama administration found that the evidence for any benefit is too weak and that the risk of side effects and harm too great for the government to mandate that Medicare or Medicaid pay. So this is really, we're talking about experimental procedures that HR5 will mandate every single physician to participate in. And that's the biggest problem.

And it's being mandated, as I say, under the guise of helping trans-identified people, when in point of fact, it does nothing to decrease their risk of suicide. There's a huge study out of Sweden that followed transgender individuals for 10, 20, and 30 years out, at 10 years out from surgery, their mental health was significantly worse than the general population. So despite getting hormones in surgery, their underlying issues were not healed. By 30 years after surgery, the transgender identified population had a suicide rate 19 times greater than the general population. We are not helping. We're putting these individuals who are suffering. We're giving them toxic hormones that set them up for heart attacks, strokes,

cancers, and worse. And we're not even diminishing their suicide rate. Yeah, it's interesting that you talk about how doctors would be forced under this law to mutilate their patients, basically. Under legal sanction. So what kind of, what kind of sanction would they be facing? I mean, you know, would they face jail time or fines? I mean, if they refuse to, you know, to go along with, with gender transition surgery. So if, so refusing to go along with prescribing these dangerous hormones, refusing to go along with performing the mutilating surgeries, you would be in violation of federal discrimination laws and you would you would be subject to those penalties. And this isn't just speculation. There are some states that have already enacted state laws similar to the Equality

Act. And just based on that, in New Jersey, one Catholic hospital has been sued by a woman claiming to be a man. She sued the Catholic hospital because the hospital refused to perform a hysterectomy. Similarly in California, another Catholic health system is being sued by another woman who identifies as a man and wants a hysterectomy. And this is at a time when these individuals could simply go to another, they have a choice. They can still go elsewhere. It's a lot like the cake baker who is forced to make a wedding for the gay. I mean, there's plenty of other providers out there. It's not a question of availability. Right. So it's not a question of availability. Now, which is why if HR5 passes and becomes the law of the land,

you're putting Catholic health care out of business. A surgeon who performs breast surgery for cancer patients must perform double mastectomies for physically healthy women who identify as men. But it's not just in terms of surgeries or prescribing toxic hormones that would impact doctors. It would also, the equality, the really should be the Inequality Act, will mandate physicians to also do other morally objectionable procedures, such as abortions, sterilizations. This is because HR5 applies to sex and gender identity and sexual orientation without any more. moral conscience or religious exemptions. Since HR5 defines sex discrimination as including so-called reproductive health care, this HR5 would also mandate physicians and health professionals to participate in sterilizations,

dispensing contraception, and performing abortions against their moral conscience. So there is a groundswell of opposition, certainly among the Christian Medical Association, Catholic Medical Association, but also in organizations like ours, the American College of Pediatricians, the American Association of Physicians, and the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs. We stand for the traditional Hippocratic O. oath, which means we don't kill our patients. Or harm them in any way. Or harm them in any way. And so although, as you would expect, Christian and Catholic physicians are especially alarmed,

it is not only those two groups, but all of us who consider ourselves traditional hypocratic physicians. So you've obviously studied this legislation quite. a lot. Do you have concerns about the Equality Act's impact for parental rights when they're dealing perhaps with a child who doesn't accept their gender identity or for the curriculum and what it might start to include on LGBT issues? So we'll take the, so parent, so parent rights in medicine will take first. There are none anymore. When this, if this Equality Act passes, it literally says that any action by anyone to interfere with access to transgender,

quote unquote, transgender procedures or reproductive health, that's discrimination. That's not allowed. And again, we don't have to speculate in states already that have, gender identity laws on the books. Parents are losing their right to know. I mean, we're having kids who go to the school nurse, like kids in middle school and high school going to the school nurse or another faculty member saying, you know, I'm trans and I'm, but I don't want my parents to know. And the schools are actually facilitating the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

We've had, one family in Ohio already had their parental rights terminated because they would not consent to their adolescent daughter getting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. So, no, HR5, the kids essentially become the states. And similarly, as you alluded to, in... public schools because they receive federal dollars will actually be required to teach this transgender ideology from pre-K on forward all the way up. No parental, you know, in terms of local control of your public schools, no, out the door, no. Sex ed and this transgender ideology will be force fed to all kids from preschool on up.

And again, if you look at the states that have gender identity enshrined in law, this is already happening. So these aren't scare tactics. I'm not making this up. It's already happening in states that protect wrongly identified gender identity as though it's race or skin color. Yeah, it makes me wonder, you know, if this were to pass, I mean, looks like obviously divided control of government may not happen this year, but, you know, imposing this on the entire country, yeah, some parts of the country are, you know, already doing it. They're already, you know, progressive and liberal, but other parts of the country are not, and I can just imagine what kind of backlash there would be. There, there would be tremendous backlash. But I think

it's important for us to even to step back. Even in the states that have gender identity enshrined as an innate and unchangeable characteristic, I think it's important for our listeners to understand that even states that currently have gender identity protected as though it were skin color, they still have religious carve-outs. HR-5 has none. This means if HR-5 passes that private schools and even churches and Catholic hospitals, all private institutions will have to bow down to the transgender ideology of the state. And again, it's because HR5 rewrites civil rights law on so many different levels.

It literally guts religious rights, parent rights. It eliminates the female half of the human race in law. I mean, there won't be any more segregated. There won't be any more girls' sports. It'll be men's sports versus co-ed sports. There won't be any women's restrooms or women's locker rooms or even women's shelters. It's going to be co-ed everything. Well, except, yeah, co-ed everything. It completely undoes our entire way of life. So speaking of the sports issue, I was actually reading a liberal site, Dudspin the other day,

that was arguing that it shouldn't matter of transgender. athletes play women's sports because some men are smaller than some women and yada yada and essentially this shouldn't be an issue and what would you as a doctor say about the biological differences even after transition between biological females and biological males and are there safety issues for biological females if they're playing sports with transgender persons who were born male So, you know, this is, it is, you don't get any more anti-science than the claim that there are no biological differences between males and females. Okay, from fertilization, if you have a Y chromosome, you are male. Okay, that's, that's the normal pathway.

The fact that 0.02% of the time, you may have a mismatch, the fact that it's this time. literally, you know, 99.98% of the time you have a Y chromosome, you're a male, X, X, you're female. That's the norm. If you have that Y chromosome, it is present in every cell of your body and it impacts the development of every organ system. So what does this mean? It means that every male has male musculature, bone structure. Yes, our brains are different. Every organ system is male at that basic cellular level, the muscle fibers of males are stronger than those of females. So physiologically, we are a bimodal, you know, yes, there's a range of normal in males and a range of normal in females, but at the most basic cellular physiological level, men are going to be

bigger, faster, stronger. And look, a man on estrogen is still a man. He's still a man. He's still a man. He's doping estrogen. He's going to be weaker and slower than men who don't dope estrogen, but he's still not a woman. One of the things that we've also seen is some tension in the academic world. There was a study from Brown University that was very controversial, as you well know. It came out last year.

got a lot of flack because it reached some conclusions that the trans activist community didn't like. And so that study went under review for like six months. It came out again this past spring, basically the same conclusions. But that made me wonder how many other studies are there that are being suppressed or, you know, researchers are being, you know, behind closed door pressure not to pursue this kind of thing because of ideological pressure. you're closer to that world than we are. Do you think intimidation is a factor in shaping the kinds of questions and the kinds of approach that researchers take to? Absolutely, absolutely.

For really, for a couple decades now, academia has been really controlled by progressive leftist elites and American College of Pediatricians, we have many academic members who have, they won't get their research funded because it doesn't tow the ideological line, whether that is on, with regard to the life issues or ideal family structure,

and certainly the transgender issue. One of our members is engaged in a lawsuit, against his academic institution because he testified in favor of parents' rights to not give their child the toxic cross-sex hormones. And his institution didn't like that. And they basically fired him within three weeks, despite his stellar record as a clinician as well as a scientist. So we anticipate he will win that lawsuit.

But you're right. It's to come out in favor of caution with regard to affirming transgender beliefs in children can be career ending. And if that weren't bad enough, you're also, you're ostracized and vilified. So socially, you take a hit. It's horrible. So when we hear about the science, it's important to remember that that consensus, quote unquote, is being shaped by a lot of these ideological factors.

And so when people, you know, Nancy Pelosi throws out, well, the scientific community is confirmed so and so, that's not exactly gospel. No. And, you know, and the American Academy of Pediatrics is a great example. The American Academy of Pediatrics is roughly 87 years. years old. They were the only game in town, you know, the American College of Pediatricians. We have been growing since 2002. So the AAP's first statement on the care of gender dysphoria and children was written by an employee of the human rights campaign. I mean, that's like,

that would be like the American. Which for our audience is the leading LGBT activist group. Yeah. And their update, the AAP, updated statement, which was just released last October, sure, that one's written by a physician. They weren't counting on anyone fact-checking it, but a gender identity specialist and psychologist, Dr. James Cantor, was so shocked that the AAP was recommending that all children be transitioned, he fact-checked their policy. Well, every single one of their references contradicts what they say. He pulled their references, read the references,

each reference they tuck away in their policy actually recommends watchful waiting to support the young child through puberty where the vast majority will accept their biological sex. So, and the way this happens, by the way, it's not that 66,000 pediatricians are lying. No, it's that one extremist wrote the paper, and roughly 50 pediatricians get to vote on and pass the policy for everybody.

So we're talking about large medical, so-called medical and mental health organizations publishing policies that are really reflecting the ideological belief system of a tiny minority of their members. So why do you think these big doctors groups are caving like this? Why are they going along with this agenda? And do you ever have doctors approaching you who say, I'm afraid to speak out on this issue, but I agree with you? Absolutely. Again, it's because, you know, just as academia was essentially the leadership in academia over time became very progressive, elitist, Marxist, if you will, the same has happened. that's filtered over to medicine, psychology. So the groups are caving because their leaders are of this mindset. And, you know, there's a study from within the last five or ten years that found people with gender identity disorder have a chemical factor in their brain

that is elevated. And this particular factor is elevated in mental illness. You're not going to hear about that study because, oh, it suggests that maybe gender dysphoria, trans identity might be related to mental illness somehow. You won't hear about that. You won't hear about, you know, the common person doesn't realize that there are odles and odles of brain studies showing differences between girls who have anorexia nervosa and those who don't. Those studies are very solid. You know, they're replicated. but because there's no political agenda there, doctors are free to say, oh, yeah, well, these differences,

well, we know that the brain changes appearance and function based on behavior. We also know that if there is biology there, well, it's only predisposition. So they look at those brain changes and say maybe we can come up with, maybe there one day there will be some medicine to help with the treatment of anorexia. But when we're dealing with transgender, that's not how the discussion goes. We have these, and by comparison, they're very poor. It's very few far between, very poorly designed brain studies, but all you'll hear is, oh, there's differences here, there's differences there in these brains. Hey, you know what?

We got some boys with girl brains. We got some girls with boy brains, which is, you know, a boy can no more have a girl brain than he can have a girl hand. It's all about political ideology. Well, I think that's a great place for us to leave this, but Dr. Kutella, really appreciate you coming back to Heritage and joining us on the podcast. Oh, thank you for having me. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast.

And that's going to do it for us today. for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback. Rob and Virginia will be with you on Monday. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and the Learampersad. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.