The US Department of Justice has dropped a case against a Texas doctor who was accused of illegally sharing the private medical records of transgender youth.
Federal prosecutors had described Dr Eithan Haim, a 34-year-old surgeon, as having snatched the private medical records of patients who were young people experiencing gender dysphoria.
He was accused of passing them on to an activist as part of a campaign to cause malicious damage to the Texas Children’s Hospital. It was alleged that Doctor Haim had accessed the hospitals database under false pretenses two years after he stopped working at the facility.
Dr Haim had pleaded not guilty to four counts of wrongfully obtaining identifiable health information and had described himself as a “whistleblower.” If he had been found guilty at trial, he could have faced up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
At the time providing gender affirming care to minors was legal in Texas but the hospital had previously announced it had stopped providing care after an investigation was ordered by Govenor Greg Abbott.
Dr Haim claimed he had redacted all the identifiable information from the patients before handing it on to the activist. Speaking to the New York Times he said the news that prosectors were dropping the case had come as a surprise, but he said it was thanks to President Trump.
Johnathan Gooch, a spokesman for Equality Texas said the decision was another assault on the rights of transgender people in the region.
“I think this whole incident with the exposure of private medical data seriously eroded a lot of trust between LGBTQ people in Texas and their doctors, which is such an important relationship,” Gooch said.
“I think it is alarming to see an implicit endorsement of anti-trans vigilantism from the Justice Department. If this is permissible, what else is permissible?”
In 2023 Texas changed its laws making it illegal for doctors to give puberty blockers, hormone treatment or gender related surgery to people under the age of 18.
