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EXCLUSIVE: A top conservative watchdog is suing the federal health care bureaucracy alleging they are stonewalling results of a study started under the Obama administration looking into the effects of transgender therapy pharmaceuticals on youth.
Oversight Project president Mike Howell told Fox News Digital in a Wednesday interview that administering puberty blockers and other nascent drugs to teens is akin to “modern-day Tuskegee experiments” and that the National Institutes of Health and the study’s proctor should not be allowed to keep their results secret.
In 2014, NIH awarded a grant to children’s hospitals that led to a study helmed by a Los Angeles pediatrician to discern the long-term effects of puberty blockers on pediatric transgender people, Howell explained, citing his organization’s lawsuit.
In 2024, Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., wrote to the Biden-led NIH questioning why “principal investigator” Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy was “withholding publication” of the $9.7 million study’s findings.
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“In light of the NIH grantee’s unwillingness to release the research project’s findings, we ask that you provide documents and information to assist the Committee’s oversight of this matter,” McClain wrote, citing her role as chair of a House Oversight subcommittee.
One year later, Howell’s group sought the files through a public request in July, and sued this week, claiming officials ignored them.
Both McClain, in her letter, and Howell, in his interview, raised concerns over Olson-Kennedy’s remarks about critics potentially weaponizing results from the NIH-funded study.
“NIH is responsible for overseeing its extramural research projects to ensure supported researchers practice transparency, exemplify scientific integrity, and are proper stewards of taxpayer funds,” McClain wrote to the Biden NIH.
Howell said he wants the NIH, under the Trump administration, to make the results public, citing troubling hints from Olson-Kennedy in a New York Times article that quoted her saying about one-quarter of participants reported some type of depression.
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“In light of the recent spate of transgender ideology-inspired violent extremism and domestic terrorism, Including some of the shootings at schools and churches and most recently, Charlie Kirk, the Oversight Project and I want to know what the government knows about the psychological conditions of this new and coveted population of transgender children who are now growing into adults,” Howell said.
“It seems to me, in light of recent disclosures, including the America First Legal v. FDA [suit] that the government was well aware that these types of therapies, surgeries and cultural celebration and praising of this class of people was dangerous and led to increases in suicide rates, depression and other psychological conditions which all too often are manifesting in violent tendencies.”
In 2024, America First Legal – founded by Trump confidant Stephen Miller – sued for the release of any FDA records on off-label uses for puberty blockers and “cross-sex hormones.”
Howell said there is public interest in the study’s publication because it may “map out” why or whether the government has been aware of the “massive, growing problem” but declined to publicize for “politically-correct reasons.”
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While NIH declined comment to Fox News Digital citing ongoing litigation, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been very critical of the types of drugs the Oversight Project is also concerned about.
Kennedy has called puberty blockers for minors “castration drugs,” and suggested young people cannot be considered prescient enough to make such life-changing medical decisions.
“Minors cannot drive, vote, join the army, get a tattoo, smoke, or drink, because we know that children do not fully understand the consequences of decisions with life-long ramifications,” he wrote on social media.
“The more I learn, the more troubled I have become about giving puberty blockers to youth,” Kennedy said in May 2024.
As secretary, Kennedy urged doctors to reconsider child sex-change operations in a formal letter obtained by the Daily Caller in May.
“HHS expects you promptly to make the necessary updates to your treatment protocols and training for care for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria to protect them from these harmful interventions,” it read.
Neal Cornett, a lead attorney in the case, told Fox News Digital he would also like to see any internal NIH reports on the physiological effects of related drugs Lupron and Supprelin.
“Imagine that you’re 14 years old – you take some kind of puberty blocker – you’re basically stunted, your bones aren’t growing, you have osteoporosis at the age of 15… that’s going to do a psychological number on you,” Cornett said.
Howell said there is an absolute connection, if allegations bear out, between the Tuskegee Experiments of the mid-20th century on African Americans and studies testing out puberty blockers on 21st century children.
“When I first read [of the study] – I was reminded of Tuskegee Experiments on African Americans [where the uniformed U.S. Public Health Service] gave them drugs… to test out treatments there; horrific events,” he said.
Fox News Digital also reached out to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, which was listed as the affiliate medical center for Olson-Kennedy. A number listed for Olson-Kennedy’s California practice was disconnected.
She told the Times in October 2024 she intended then to publish the data but blamed delays on funding cuts — a claim the NIH denied, the paper reported.
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