House Republicans launched an investigation on Monday into the efforts of a prominent youth transgender medicine physician to withhold results from a federally funded study on the mental health effects of puberty blockers for political reasons.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director for the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, said she was delaying publication of the results from a multiyear study funded by the National Institutes of Health for fear that her findings could be used by critics of transgender medicine for minors.
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), chairwoman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Healthcare and Financial Services, sent a letter to NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli regarding the status of the trans youth care, or TYC, study conducted by Olson-Kennedy with a $9.7 million NIH grant.
“NIH is responsible for overseeing its extramural research projects to ensure supported researchers practice transparency, exemplify scientific integrity, and are proper stewards of taxpayer funds,” McClain wrote, requesting that Bertagnolli provide all documents regarding the TYC study by Nov. 18.
Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times in an interview that early findings of her longitudinal study showed that puberty blocker treatments for adolescents with gender dysphoria did not lead to mental health improvements. She claimed that the children didn’t show major improvements because they were doing well when the study began.
“They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years,” Olson-Kennedy said, adding that she did “not want [her] work to be weaponized.”
McClain’s letter to Bertagnolli highlights that the results Olson-Kennedy shared with the New York Times are significantly different than the paper she authored in 2020, funded by the NIH, that said the cohort of 95 children involved in the study did experience adverse mental health symptoms at the beginning of the experiment.
“Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s apparent mischaracterization of the TYC study’s results and refusal to publish taxpayer-funded research because they contradict her pre-existing biases and could be cited by critics of ‘gender-affirming’ medical interventions is an irrefutable example of politicization of scientific research to further an ideological agenda,” McClain wrote to Bertagnolli.
Under Olson-Kennedy’s leadership, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development prescribed 103 minor patients with cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers and performed 165 cross-sex surgical procedures on minors, according to insurance billing records published by the medical advocacy group Do No Harm.
The Center for Transyouth Health and Development has not responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for an interview with Olson-Kennedy.
McClain’s subcommittee is not the only one in the House to be investigating the reasons why the results of the TYC study have been withheld.
House Energy and Commerce Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) told reporters that her committee would also begin to investigate the Olson-Kennedy study as a “clear example of the politicization of science at the expense of children.”
“Research funded by taxpayer dollars through the NIH should be publicly disclosed regardless of the results, and Americans deserve access to the truth,” Rodgers said.
The House Oversight Committee launched an investigation in August into pressure put on professional medical organizations from key players in the Biden administration to loosen age restrictions on transgender surgeries for minors, such as double mastectomy and vaginoplasty.
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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, also started an investigation into the dearth of research on the efficacy of hormonal and surgical interventions for gender nonconforming minors.
The NIH did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment regarding the Olson-Kennedy study.