Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis is pushing the idea that nutrition is somehow racist, and is still advocating for cross-sex hormones despite a new Missouri law banning them for children.
That’s according to a Sunday Fox News story that reports “Powerpoint presentation slides obtained by Fox News Digital show the school urging students in August to advocate for cross-sex hormones despite acknowledging the lack of evidence on its neural impact and admitting its effect on neural (circuitry) is ‘unknown.’”
Meanwhile, the report says a slide from the medical school’s Health Equity and Justice class this summer claims nutrition advice is steeped in racism because an early researcher “found out exactly what it took to keep the human body alive by starving native children to death.”
Moreover, the presentation seems to blame all white people.
“And that’s how the deaths of indigenous children became today’s moment in White History. Happy Indigenous Heritage Month,” a video in the presentation concludes, according to Fox.
The Heartlander asked a medical school spokesperson Monday morning if Washington University believes the alleged experiment referenced in the presentation is an indictment of whites in general, since it seems to say so. We also asked whether the medical school stands by that statement and, if not, whether there will be some kind of action taken.
The presentation, says Fox, includes an assertion that “BMI (Body Mass Index) should stand for ‘badly mistaken idea’ because ‘current BMIs are based on the imagined ‘ideal’ caucasian and do not consider a person’s gender or ethnicity.’”
The national public interest organization Do No Harm, which describes itself as a “diverse group of physicians, healthcare professionals, medical students, patients, and policymakers” fighting to protect medicine from politics and radical ideologies, notes the inherent danger in politicizing or racializing the science of nutrition.
“There is no disputing that individuals who have high body mass index (BMI) have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease,” Fox News quotes Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm.
But even more concerning, Goldfarb told Fox, is Washington University’s “persistent advocacy for the use of puberty blockers in children, a stance that now violates Missouri law, which opposes such treatment for children. This law aligns with the best scientific evidence, as determined by five European nations whose healthcare systems have conducted thorough and systematic research.”
The Heartlander asked Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office for comment, and whether it anticipates taking action as a result of the Fox News story.
As noted by Fox, the university’s transgender center said in September it would “no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors for purposes of gender transition” because of the Missouri law’s having “created a new legal claim for patients who received these medications as minors.”
