Federal Prosecutors Dropping HIPAA Charges Against Dr. Ethan Haim, Stemming from Youth Gender Medicine Disclosures

From the Justice Department’s press release about the charges in June:

A Houston doctor has been indicted for obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization, announced Alamdar S. Hamdani….

The four-count indictment alleges Haim obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes and the attending physician from Texas Children’s Hospital’s (TCH) electronic system without authorization. He allegedly obtained this information under false pretenses and with intent to cause malicious harm to TCH.

According to the indictment, Haim was a resident at Baylor College of Medicine and had previous rotations at TCH as part of his residency.

In April 2023, Haim allegedly requested to re-activate his login access at TCH to access pediatric patients not under his care. The indictment alleges he obtained unauthorized access to personal information of pediatric patients under false pretenses and later disclosed it to a media contact.

From the Free Press (Tom Bartlett):

Haim decided to tell the media what was happening at his hospital. He knew taking a public stance on such a divisive issue could undermine his medical career before it really started, so he was determined to remain anonymous. He told me he didn’t present his findings to hospital administrators because it was obvious to him that what was happening had the approval of higher-ups.

Eventually, Haim contacted Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist and journalist. Rufo published a story in May 2023, not naming Haim, but calling him a “whistleblower” at Texas Children’s. It was illustrated with heavily redacted versions of the patients’ records. (Shortly after, the Texas legislature voted to pass its law banning transition treatments for minors.) …

The records Haim disclosed include the ages of patients, some as young as 11 and 12. They also include their diagnoses and brief treatment summaries—most were getting puberty blockers inserted. To conceal the patients’ identities, Haim stripped out their names, birth dates, and other identifying information before sending the records to Rufo. (Haim points out the irony that in the indictment against him, the initials of several patients are listed, which means the government published more identifying information than he did.) …

Haim believes he wasn’t indicted for violating patient privacy, which he says he would never do. Instead, he thinks the Justice Department intended to silence him and, in so doing, send a message to other would-be whistleblowers.

The joint motion to dismiss the indictment offers no details, other than saying:

The United States … and the defendant, Eithan David Haim, hereby move this Court for an order dismissing the Second Superseding Indictment and all open counts with prejudice.

But presumably the Trump Administration had a different view on the matter than did the Biden Administration.

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