The Department of Justice has indicted Dr. Eithan Haim, a little-known surgeon who exposed Texas Children’s Hospital for secretly conducting transgender surgeries and treatments on minors, on four felony counts related to his alleged violation of a medical-records law.
Last year, Haim anonymously leaked evidence of the child sex-change procedures to conservative journalist Christopher Rufo. Texas Children’s Hospital continued running its transgender program, despite announcing the program had been discontinued in accordance with Governor Greg Abbott’s 2022 directive that equated such medical interventions with child abuse.
The Houston-based hospital was ultimately forced to stop its trans-medical practices after a state law took effect in September 2023, prohibiting drug and surgical “gender-affirming” interventions for minors.
In January, Haim revealed he was the one who exposed the hospital in an effort to protect himself from retaliation by the DOJ and the Department of Health and Human Services. Greeted by federal officials at his doorstep last June, the general surgeon discovered that he was a potential target in a criminal investigation regarding his leaking of medical records. The prosecutor claims he failed to redact sensitive patient information.
Rufo, who reviewed the records himself before publishing the initial article, says otherwise. “For my own part, I can confirm that nothing in the information provided to me identified any individual; all the documents were, in fact, carefully redacted,” the journalist wrote in his latest City Journal story, in which he broke the news that Haim had been indicted.
Assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas Tina Ansari, whose office is leading the criminal investigation, argues Haim had no right to share the medical records of minor patients with the public.
However, she neglected to mention that the documents disclosed were not patient charts, were redacted to protect sensitive patient information, and complied with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. (HIPAA permits anonymized information to be disclosed generally, and even protected information can be publicized if it's used to stop egregious medical misconduct.)
U.S. marshals notified Haim of the indictment at his home this week and summoned him to court for violating HIPAA. Haim and his legal team, who don’t yet know the full nature of the charges, are set to appear in court on June 17.
“My client is anxious to get to trial to get his side of the story told,” attorney Marcella Burke told National Review. “I am confident this will result in the correct decision being made.”
Haim and Ansari’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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