WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Republican senators grilled Biden’s nominee for Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH), Monica Bertagnolli, over a “transgender study” the Institute conducted that involved the deaths of two youths by suicide.
Confronting Bertagnolli on the issue in a Congressional hearing, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said, “The NIH was funding this research, and beyond that I believe the NIH even called the study a success. That’s sick.”
“It sounds to me like the NIH totally dropped the ball on quality control and oversight,” Tuberville declared.
The study included “315 transgender and nonbinary participants 12 to 20 years of age” across children’s hospitals in Boston, Chicago, Oakland, and Los Angeles.
The report published after the study claimed that “during the study period, appearance congruence, positive affect, and life satisfaction increased, and depression and anxiety symptoms decreased. Increases in appearance congruence were associated with concurrent increases in positive affect and life satisfaction and decreases in depression and anxiety symptoms.”
READ: BBC’s new LGBT propaganda show pushes ‘sex changes’ for children: ‘You can’t fight gender dysphoria’
However, the report also had to acknowledge suicidal thoughts in some participants and the deaths of two youths by suicide. “The most common adverse event was suicidal ideation (in 11 participants [3.5%]); death by suicide occurred in 2 participants,” the report stated.
“That’s obviously a tragedy,” Tuberville declared of the youth suicides, highlighting the disparity between the report of the deaths and the praise showered by the NIH on the use of experimental cross-sex hormones for minors.
“If confirmed, how will you make sure nothing like that ever happens on your watch?” Tuberville asked Bertagnolli.
Dodging the specific issue, Bertagnolli refused to affirm that she would oppose the use or recommendation of cross-sex hormones for minors, despite the evidence of higher rates of suicide, among myriad other consequences, such as irreversible sterilization – consequences that have led victims of such experimentation to draft the “Detransitioner Bill of Rights”.
Affirming that the NIH was committed to serving “all people, all walks of life” – implying the continuation of the use of experimental hormones – Bertagnolli stated, “Any research that we do that involves human beings, people, is conducted according to the highest ethical principles so that we make sure that the research is intending to do no harm, to achieve benefit, and is done in ways that have maximum respect for the dignity of people.”
READ: Missouri hospital stops giving children transgender hormones after new law takes effect
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) also questioned Bertagnolli on the so-called “gender transition” procedures for minors, asking, “Do you believe that it’s [okay] to fund this type of research where these irreversible procedures are being done? Do you think there’s any experiment that you can think would justify irreversibly damaging these poor little boys and girls who are 14, 15 years old?”
Again avoiding the crux of the matter, Bertagnolli answered, “Any research that we do, Senator, with regard to human subjects has to be done in a way that does no harm and produces the maximum benefit to the people that are participating in the research.”
As LifeSiteNews has reported, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, and infertility. Further, studies indicate that over 80 percent of children suffering from gender dysphoria will outgrow it on their own by late adolescence without surgical or pharmaceutical interventions.
In the Congressional hearing, Sen. William Cassidy (R-LA) himself a gastroenterologist, brought up previous meetings he had held with Bertagnolli in which the two had discussed “bioethical issues, including fetal tissue and embryonic stem cell research, and the use of hormones and other gender-transition interventions on children.” He stated that at the time she similarly “avoided getting into specifics, citing a lack of expertise.”
READ: Members of NIH human fetal tissue research ethics advisory board revealed
On the issue of research conducted using fetal tissue derived from aborted babies, the NIH prospective claimed that she would be “very respectful” of the “passionate feelings” of opponents, as though respectful disagreement and the service of scientific research would suffice to settle a matter deemed criminally barbarous by those who believe in the sanctity of life and the respect owed to the bodily remains of the unborn children killed by abortion.
“Understanding the great sensitivity of many people and passionate feelings of many people on the issue of fetal tissue research, I would want to be very respectful of that,” Bertagnolli said.
When Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) asked Bertagnolli if she would “commit to requiring NIH contractors and grantees that they explicitly inform mothers that their child will feel pain during an abortion by 12 weeks of pregnancy,” she avoided the issue of the pointed question and instead denied that she would require mothers to be informed about any research conducted using fetal tissue.
“I believe that the policies and procedures that govern any research with fetal tissues really prohibit any discussion whatsoever with the mother toward even the possible use of such tissue for research. So it would not be acceptable for me to affirm this – that interaction is not allowed to take place,” Bertagnolli responded.
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