Exposing Woke Politics and Child Harm in the American Academy of Pediatrics

Did you see this tweet thread about the American Academy of Pediatrics indulging in woke politics at the expense of the lives of children?

The American Academy of Pediatrics's guidance on trans kids was written by one gender clinician with help from 2 trans activists, neither of whom has a medical degree.

Its guidance on COVID vaccines was drafted without input from its cardiology section.🧵 https://t.co/FJRUD1zz4f

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) December 7, 2022

It's all worth reading, though it fills one's heart with dread at the thought of how very corrupt this institution is. 

In recent years, it has also become a participant in America’s culture wars. Judges have deferred to the group’s expertise in high-stakes court cases about children with gender dysphoria, who the AAP says can start socially transitioning at “any” age.

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) December 7, 2022

You can read this report in article form here.

I commented on Twitter with some steps parents can and should take now. (Keep in mind that it really is up to thinking parents to do these things. The rich pride themselves on having the "best" information and relying on the "best" experts. The poor are constrained by their circumstances and have little choice.)

Here's my tweet:

Feeling helpless?
1. Seek out a pediatrician who will respect your parental authority
2. Seek out information apart from conventional (AAP) sources
3. Stay with your child (yes even teen) during any exam
4. Learn to remedy normal illnesses/problems yourself, it’s not hard https://t.co/HDtTqqbna1

— Leila✥Marie✥Lawlerن (@_Leila) December 8, 2022

A popular post on my other blog (and chapter in my book) is this one: My secrets to taking care of your sick child at home. Might want to bookmark it. Get a few good books on first aid and ordinary nursing care and start learning. I remember very well sitting in an ER cubicle at 3am with an asthmatic child on a nebulizer and wondering why I didn't just have one of my own. You can buy butterfly bandages, fine tweezers, antiseptics, soaking basins, and all the other necessary things and learn to use them yourself.

Some of you are medical professionals and could come up with ways to use your expertise outside of the conventional paradigm. I have no doubt that parents would flock to you! People are getting fed up with what is obviously no longer medicine but just a sort of administrative herding process.

Here are some further thoughts, too long for Twitter:

For a long time now, alert parents have felt aggression from a force lurking behind their pediatrician. The doctor himself might have been well meaning and helpful, but there was an unnamed entity that seemed to dictate courses of treatment that went against common sense. 

From worrying that one would be accused of abuse and have one's child taken away over a misinterpreted bruise or break, to fending off irrational irritation or even anger when we questioned vaccines or even just the overall schedule, there has been a certain antagonism at the doctor's office. In the span of time between my eldest and youngest children (seven of them, born from 1980 to 1997), I saw a change from support for my parenting, to a usurpation of that role, with the doctor finally insisting on seeing my child alone, without my presence, to ask about sexual activity and gun possession. During that time, the response to my wishes regarding my child's care went from "okay, it's your call" to "it's the recommendation [sic; read: mandate] of the AAP and this office has to comply."

The lockdowns made this tension much stronger. My kids are grown now, but I followed the effects with growing concern. Sick kids weren't being seen, babies were being taken from moms at birth if a positive Covid test came up, untested shots for the virus were proposed, masking became a shibboleth promoted by doctors, and isolating children -- who were, we knew right at the start, not at risk -- inside, in front of screens, became the norm.

So in one way, I am not surprised by the really shocking revelations found in this tweet thread regarding the American Academy of Pediatrics' abuse of power and utter capitulation to political trends -- in this case, gender ideology. I actually think this started long ago -- seven years ago I saw a pamphlet in my youngest's pediatric office for "gender transitioning." And before Covid, I warned about state laws mandating vaccines without parental consent or knowledge.

There are complex reasons for a board (the AAP) to have this amount of power in what we constantly and piously refer to as an almost sacred relationship between patient and doctor (not to mention the actually sacred relationship of parent to child). The hard truth is that the majority of America's children are increasingly not in the care of two parents or have parents who don't speak English and are inured to the idea of the state and medical complex taking over their responsibilities -- maybe even relieved for it to be so.

There is also clearly a relationship between the AAP, the government agencies overseeing public health, and the insurance companies. It's beyond my scope right now to delve into it all, but many a parent has been told that "insurance says" that shots have to be given. We do know that pediatric practices receive money in exchange for having patients get shots. They are called "incentives" and perhaps explain the anger one is met with if one resists.

Thus, as incredible as it seems to have non-medical people making sweeping decisions for the health care of our nation's children amounting to mutilating them and plunging them into despair (you really do just have to read the thread and/or article), the groundwork was laid long ago. The parents of vaccine-harmed children, the parents of children who were taken away from them with accusations of abuse, the parents whose children were given treatments they did not consent to, can attest to it.

Update: I wanted to add this substack: The Hijacking of Pediatric Medicine. But I want to reiterate that this has been going on for a long time. The advent of childhood vaccinations as a public health matter has politicized pediatric care. As I say, there are complex reasons for how this happened that have to do mainly with the interplay between the factors of the monetization of the shots*, the vulnerability of children who don't live in two-parent households, children in daycare, and immigration. I'll let the reader ponder those elements. But the point is that this trust problem did not arise recently. 

*Pfizer has profited by tens of billions of dollars on the Covid shots alone ($3.5 billion in the first 3 months of 2021). I too would love to have a product mandated across the board for everyone... nice work if you can get it!