FEATURED
OPINION
A new book provides a solid primer on how “diversity, equity, and inclusion” have infected not just undergraduate universities, but medical schools and academic medicine.
In “Doing Great Harm?” out now by Post Hill Press, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb provides a succinct summary of the major controversies facing medicine today. The publisher provided a complimentary copy to The College Fix.
Though written by an accomplished nephrologist and former associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania medical school, the book is easy for the lay person to understand.
Dr. Goldfarb (pictured) is the founder and chairman of Do No Harm, which has established itself as an effective counter to captured organizations like the American Medical Association.
The medical reform group has quickly become since 2022 a force to be reckoned with through a multi-prong approach. The group frequently testifies to lawmakers about the harms of transgender drugs and surgeries for minors and files lawsuits against illegal racial discrimination.
The most valuable section for the average reader may be chapter five, where Goldfarb discusses studies that claim to find racial discrimination in medicine.
The most famous of these is a study by Brad Greenwood, Rachel Hardeman, and others, that claimed black babies were more likely to live when cared for by black doctors. Illustrating the harm of questionable research, this study made its way into a dissent by Justice Ketanji Jackson in the affirmative action Supreme Court ban and continues to be cited in favor of DEI today.
Do No Harm has done extensive work documenting the problems with this study, and the ways the authors tried to frame their data to fit a particular “narrative.”
The Fix asked Goldfarb what can be done to fix the problem of academic publishing pushing out pro-DEI claims as well as what the average person can do to sift through the claims. The mainstream media is usually eager to trumpet any study that finds values to DEI, even when those are questionable.
“Unfortunately, it is rare for the public to have the capability to evaluate complex scientific studies, particularly if they involve very advanced statistical methodologies,” Goldfarb told The Fix via a media statement. “It is up to science to police itself.”
He provided a few ideas.
“Recent studies have shown that, besides obvious flaws in experimental design and data acquisition, such as found in the Greenwood study, outright irreproducibility of results may be found in as many as 50% of published scientific studies,” Goldfarb said.
He said institutions should require training on “ethical conduct” and “good scientific research.”
Medical journals also have a role to play to ensure “the rigor of the peer review process,” which Goldfarb said can be a “rather slapdash enterprise.”
“When scientific misconduct or failure to be ethical in conducting scientific research is found, there should be substantial penalties enacted,” he said.
He concluded by arguing for transparency in data, “so that other scholars can re-examine their methods and determine accuracy.”
Book details problems with transgender drugs and surgeries
One area that deserves further scrutiny are studies that claim to find benefits to the chemical and surgical mutilation of gender-confused kids, sometimes called “gender-affirming care.”
Thanks to Do No Harm, the studies and groups pushing the removal of healthy reproductive organs from girls and boys are facing a real pushback. Do No Harm regularly has Chloe Cole, a woman who previously had a double mastectomy as a teenager, testify in support of bans on transgender drugs and surgeries for minors.
The well-spoken Cole is a powerful voice against the harms of the surgeries, as she warns others about the effects the drugs and mastectomy had on her physical and emotional health.
The book devotes two chapters to this topic, which give a solid overview of the current controversy for those who have not been following it too closely. Goldfarb lays out the weak evidence in support of these interventions for minors and affirms it is not possible for someone to change their sex anyways.
The Fix did raise questions about why, given the evidence presented against transgender drugs and surgeries, Goldfarb doesn’t explicitly say he opposes them for adults as well.
“I don’t give a damn if an adult wishes to take hormones or have his or her body radically altered – mutilated, perhaps, to fulfill his desire to ‘be,’ the other sex,” he writes in the book. “But do not start confused children down this road.” He makes several other references to his libertarian view on adults receiving the drugs and surgeries.
He told The Fix the group’s focus is on protecting kids, but he is not endorsing the procedures for adults.
“The government has a critical and legitimate role in protecting minors from harmful medical interventions to which they are unable to consent,” Goldfarb told The Fix.
“Do No Harm is marshaling our resources to expose the ideologically-driven pseudoscience that has proliferated this social contagion,” he said. “No other organization has made as much progress in such a short period of time.”
“The acknowledgement that adults are free to make decisions that are harmful to themselves is in no way an endorsement of those choices and any suggestion otherwise is disingenuous and a distraction from the important work that remains to be done to end the scandal of child sex-change procedures,” according to Goldfarb.
Even for those who disagree and would want a total prohibition, the good news is that around 80 to 90 percent of gender-confused kids will outgrow their dysphoria by adulthood.
This means if more states pass protections for kids, like those Do No Harm supports, the issue of transgenderism may quickly recede.
Goldfarb also understands the current media bias when it comes to DEI. He notes that a CNN story about the benefits of DEI, and lack of black doctors, was harmful to public health, according to “experts.”
“When a journalist quotes an ‘expert,’ it is always, without fail, to confirm the opinion of the journalist,” he says.
That is true – but those who oppose DEI and gender ideology should be glad to have Goldfarb as one of their experts.
