(LifeSiteNews) – A new report details how the American Academy of Pediatrics strayed from providing important medical information to parents to instead working as a leftist activist group.
The report, from Washington Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium explains “how a small group of doctors with virtually unaccountable power can exert tremendous influence over public policy, especially when a new crisis—be it moral or virological—gives them an emergency mandate,” the article, titled “The Hijacking of Pediatric Medicine,” notes.
Based on his investigations, Sibarium reported:
Though the organization’s guidelines are framed as the consensus position of the AAP’s members, only a handful of physicians had a role in shaping them. Instead, insiders say, the AAP is deferring to small, like-minded teams of specialists ensconced in children’s hospitals, research centers, and public health bureaucracies, rather than seeking the insights of pediatricians who see a wide cross-section of America’s children.
They also say a longstanding left-wing bias—over two thirds of pediatricians are registered Democrats—has accelerated, turning the organization into a more overtly political body that now pronounces on issues from climate change to immigration. As rates of gender dysphoria exploded and the Covid-19 pandemic hit, that bias seeped into the organization’s medical policy recommendations, unchecked by discussion or debate.
The article notes how the AAP shifted to adapt the position advocated by teachers unions that new federal spending would be needed to make schools safe for kids and teachers.
“From masking toddlers to boosters for 12-year-olds, the group’s guidelines were consistently out of sync with those of the rest of the world, but very much in line with the demands of anti-Trump partisans,” Sibarium wrote.
READ: New report exposes the disturbing origins and sheer power of the transgender lobby
The same politically-influenced change can be seen in the AAP’s embrace of gender ideology and transgenderism, the Free Beacon article reported.
One individual professor, Brown University’s Jason Rafferty, wrote the official AAP statement in 2018 in support of transgender surgeries and drugs, the Free Beacon reported.
“There was clearly no fact-checking,” one longtime member told the Free Beacon said. “The AAP thought trans was the next civil rights crusade and got boondoggled by enthusiastic young doctors.”
The report puts together a number of stories covered by LifeSiteNews, including the AAP’s false claim that masks do not hurt language and speech development and the group’s embrace of transgenderism.