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   From: zinn@reno.us   
      
   The Washington Free Beacon is proud to co-publish this piece with our   
   friends at Common Sense, where it also appears today.   
      
   Thousands of pediatricians convened in Anaheim, Calif., in early October   
   for the American Academy of Pediatrics’s (AAP) annual conference. The   
   group, which boasts 67,000 members in the United States and around the   
   world describes itself as "dedicated to the health of all children."   
      
   So some audience members were shocked when Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, an   
   associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama at   
   Birmingham, lauded a transgender teenager for committing suicide.   
      
   In an address about "standing up for gender-affirming care," Ladinsky   
   eulogized Leelah Alcorn, an Ohio 17-year-old who, in Ladinsky’s words,   
   "stepped boldly in front of a tractor trailer, ending her life," in 2014,   
   after leaving a suicide note that "went viral, literally around the   
   world."   
      
   Ladinsky’s remarks were captured on video by a horrified onlooker, Oregon   
   pediatrician Dr. Julia Mason, who expressed outrage on Twitter that   
   Ladinsky was "glorifying suicide," an act she described as "unprofessional   
   and dangerous."   
      
   That isn’t just Mason’s opinion. Technically speaking, it is also the   
   official stance of the AAP, whose website for parents,   
   healthychildren.org, explicitly warns that "glorifying suicide" can have a   
   "‘contagious’ effect" and inspire others to take their own lives.   
      
   Reached for comment, Ladinsky expressed "regret" about her choice of words   
   and said it was "never my intent" to glorify self-harm.   
      
   But how did this esteemed doctor wind up telling a group of physicians   
   that a teen had, as she put it, "boldly ended her life?"   
      
   In any large organization, some members are bound to hold fringe views.   
   But Ladinsky, who has devoted her career in part to facilitating the   
   gender transition of teenagers including by challenging state laws that   
   restrict the kinds of treatment physicians can provide to them, is hardly   
   an outlier at the AAP. And the AAP is an organization that matters a great   
   deal.   
      
   Founded in 1930 as an offshoot of the American Medical Association, the   
   AAP is first and foremost a standard-setting body. It outlines best   
   practices for the nation’s pediatricians, advises policy-makers on public   
   health issues, and, for many parents, is the premier authority on raising   
   healthy kids.   
      
   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. During the height of Covid, schools   
   masked toddlers—including toddlers with speech delays—based on the   
   guidance of the AAP. Sports leagues and after-school programs mandated the   
   Covid vaccine after the AAP strongly recommended it, even as concerns   
   mounted about its association with myocarditis, or inflammation of the   
   heart muscle, in young males.   
      
   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.   
      
   This story is based on dozens of interviews with pediatricians, academics,   
   and current and former AAP members, including several with leadership   
   positions in the AAP. It shows 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. A mandate affecting the lives of millions of families.   
      
   Covid: ‘Political Science Over True Science’   
      
   In the last week of June 2020, with no end to the pandemic in sight, the   
   AAP took a strong stance against school closures.   
      
   "The importance of in-person learning is well-documented, and there is   
   already evidence of the negative impacts on children because of school   
   closures in the spring of 2020," the group said in a statement, which   
   listed a litany of maladies—learning loss, food insecurity, isolation,   
   depression, physical and sexual abuse, substance use, suicidal   
   ideation—that could result from prolonged shutdowns. "[A]ll policy   
   considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of   
   having students physically present in school."   
      
   Then, on July 6, then President Donald Trump tweeted: "SCHOOLS MUST OPEN   
   IN THE FALL!!!"   
      
   Over the next week, administration officials from Vice President Mike   
   Pence to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos cited the AAP in the course of   
   pressuring local officials to reopen schools.   
      
   It didn’t take long for the AAP to buckle. By July 10, the organization   
   issued a follow-up statement—this one co-authored with the teachers   
   unions—suggesting that in-person schooling would be impossible without   
   "substantial new investments" from the federal government. Most European   
   children, meanwhile, returned to the classroom.   
      
   It was a microcosm of the AAP’s handling of the pandemic: 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.   
      
   "The AAP cared much more about political science than true science," one   
   pediatrician said.   
      
   When schools began to reopen, at first in red states, the group advised   
   that every child, including toddlers, should remain masked for the   
   duration of the day—despite the fact that the AAP had until then stressed   
   the importance of facial cues for early childhood development—even as most   
   other Western countries opted against masking young kids.   
      
   The organization didn’t just recommend masks; it lobbied politicians to   
   require them.   
      
   In an August 2021 email obtained by Common Sense and the Washington Free   
   Beacon, the Colorado chapter of the AAP, acting on the policy   
   recommendations adopted by the national organization, urged members to   
   contact the state’s governor expressing support for a mask mandate in   
   Colorado public schools. Three months later, the Iowa chapter submitted an   
   amicus brief challenging a state law that prohibited school mask mandates.   
      
   These moves prompted outrage from many rank-and-file pediatricians,   
      
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