Quentin Van Meter, MD, FCP, president and longtime member of the American College of Pediatricians, graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1969 and received his M.D. in 1973 from the Medical College of Virginia. While in medical school, he entered the Navy through the Health Professions Scholarship and went on to a pediatric internship and residency at the Naval Hospital in Oakland. He subsequently completed a fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology in 1980 at Johns Hopkins. He completed 20 years of service in the Navy Medical Corps, retiring as a Captain in 1991. His final tour of duty was back at the Naval Hospital in Oakland where he was Pediatric Department Chairman and director of the Pediatric residency program. After the Navy, he moved to the Atlanta area to join a multi-specialty private practice, providing general pediatric and pediatric endocrine services, as he had in the Navy. He has maintained academic affiliations throughout his career, at LSU, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, Emory, and Morehouse Schools of Medicine. Since 2003, he has been practicing full-time pediatric endocrinology in private practice and is actively involved in clinical research with growth hormone, novel insulins, and GnRH agonists.
He has a long history of advocacy for children through the American Academy of Pediatrics where he served as Chairman of the Uniformed Services West Chapter. Once he moved to Georgia, he became active in that AAP Chapter as Legislative Chairman and Newsletter Editor. He is continually frustrated by the political bent of the National AAP and wants to continue his advocacy role with the College as an organization that actually works for children and their families by strengthening the role of the family without using a lens that focuses only on what is politically correct or expedient. He has maintained his Georgia Chapter membership, but no longer belongs to the national organization. Dr. Van Meter has spoken around the world on the subject of transgender children. His experience began at Johns Hopkins in the 1970’s with Dr. John Money, and he has seen the travesty of continued experimentation on children evolve since then.
Resources
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Transcript
This is an automated transcript, and may contain errors.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (00:00)
It was so absolutely inept as a paper and a study that it should have by the editorial staff then say, oh, sorry, we can’t accept this paper. This is embarrassing. Your bias, meaning, you know, displayed and without the scientific basis, your references don’t, you know, your study design is flawed. Can’t do it, you know, go to someplace else. Thank you very much interesting paper, but we can’t publish it. That would be the standard for any other scientific, Okay. Didn’t happen. That was quoted as the bedrock of benefit of children being affirmed in their, in their, in Congress gender. And so then when you say that on the morning television shows, when it’s reported again in New York times, when it comes up in the Washington post and it’s on NBC nightly news and CNN, they, they just rollercoaster this. As you see, you see, you see, this is
Dr. Morse: (01:09)
Hi everyone. I’m Dr. Jennifer Roback Morris, founder, and president of the Ruth Institute where we welcome you back to reality. We bring you common sense and sound science to understand the crazy world that’s going on around us. My guest today is Dr. Quintin van meter, president of the American college of pediatricians, Dr. Van meter. Thanks so much for joining us.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (01:32)
Very happy to be here. Thank you, Dr. Jay.
Dr. Morse: (01:35)
Yeah. Well, you know what? I got to know you, we, we’ve been friends with Dr. Michelle, Katella your executive director for quite a while. She’s been on this program before and done conferences with us before. Um, and she suggested that you come to our conference that we held recently here, lake Charles, and we were delighted. We were, we thought you were stupendous. And so we thought the Dr. J show viewers really needed to hear more from you about what you have to say. So, so let’s start kind of at the beginning with the, the mainstream, I guess you would call it the mainstream, um, professional association for pediatricians. Uh, what, what is that?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (02:12)
What is the American, if the American academy of pediatrics was founded back in, I think mid 1920s, the American medical association was essentially not paying attention to the needs of the physicians who were caring for children. So they ended up deciding to create their own organization, that they would advocate specifically for children, uh, socially. And, uh, at that time in the limited scope where politics and medicine intertwined to lay forth good policy for people who would be making, uh, considering laws that would affect the lives and welfare of children. So they started that organization. And, um, it was mostly academically based at, at the beginning, um, around Boston and over its first 10 years, its membership grew to about several thousand. And then over the years, gradually and steadily grew to about, uh, I think about 35,000 to 40,000. When I joined in 1976 as a resident, a fellow, it was a new, they created a new organ, a new level of membership, so that residents in training could learn about the American academy of pediatrics.
Dr. Morse: (03:26)
And so at some point you feel like they lost their way. And you shared with us a kind of an interesting story, um, at, at our conference, you talked about that a little bit, when and how do you feel like they lost their way ducks,
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (03:41)
The AAP and I, that I’ll refer to the American academy of pediatrics as AP, from this point forward, they, they were really advocates for families and children and welfare. Uh, they believe it or not were not in favor of abortion. Uh, and it wasn’t until very shortly after the Roe V Wade decision, uh, that the American academy pediatrics became silent on the issue of abortion.
Dr. Morse: (04:07)
Is that, so, so before that, before that they had been outspoken to post and oppose opposition.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (04:13)
Absolutely. They thought that, that, uh, you know, children were, were at conception were created and live and important to protect. So that was actually in a statement from the academy back before Roe V Wade decision. And so the AAP provided lots of services for pediatricians. They provided educational conferences twice a year. They provided regional conferences around the whole world, uh, wonderful places to go to, to have a CME meeting for pediatricians in Puerto Rico, or, uh, sometimes in France and most often in the continental United States, but an opportunity to have a family to come along. They were very family, friends in meetings, and that really made this organization attractive. Uh, you also could get set from the CME. You could use that for your accreditation. Uh, they worked heavily with the American board of pediatrics. And so what it, what it did, it was a one-stop shopping situation.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (05:11)
You got a publication, you got the publication called pediatrics, the journal. Uh, you got a thing called the red book, which was an update as infectious disease. Uh, you got position statements that were, they were sort of the, the handbook of, uh, you know, things that general pediatricians would need to know. And so it really was an organization that was very useful for pediatricians. When you examine what you got for your dues, uh, it turned out that the discounts you got were actually not all that impressive, but, you know, as a pediatrician, we’re busy, we’re, you know, uh, noses to the grindstone. They, they were one-stop shopping, did a good job for us. So I, I was in that organization and luckily, because of my position as a resident in, uh, training facility, in the bay area of San Francisco, it happened that the president of the American academy of pediatrics that year was a cardiologist that I rotated through his, his practice. And he invited me to the inner circle, uh, to the meeting. So I got to see the executive functioning of the American academy pediatrics. And I was impressed that, you know, this was, this was a group of people from across the country. But I began to see when I knew that inside track that there were district leaders that were starting to play politics. And I thought, this is interesting. How is that going to help kids? And so
Dr. Morse: (06:36)
This
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (06:36)
Was in the 19 early 1980s, the early eighties, they also, the American academy of pediatrics decided to do a sections membership section. So they developed for the first time a section on endocrinology and being a pediatric endocrinologist. I said, great. I want to be a founding member of that section. And at that point in time, uh, I got into the section as a member, but I suddenly couldn’t get onto the executive committee of that section because it was overtaken by the academic pediatricians. I thought, wait a minute, what’s happening? Why are they infiltrating our general pediatric oriented group and taking over the endocrine section? And then it began to be obvious that academia and those organizations had discovered the wealth of having one-stop shopping sort of on their end as well. And they adapted in there the American academy, pediatrics as their organization to speak to the general membership. And that’s when the political climate began to change. I was a member of the, um, I went, I attended almost annually, their legislative forum and, uh, saw the politics of their office of lobbying and Washington being predominantly anti, uh, conservative. And, and so they knew me because I can’t keep my mouth shut, uh, as somebody who was not, uh, very liberal. So
Dr. Morse: (08:06)
This would have been the Reagan years. This would’ve been the Reagan
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (08:09)
Reagan years, Reagan and Gingrich were basically, uh, you know, sending us back to the dark ages with, with children and, and, uh, and race discrimination and, uh, you know, lack of a comprehensive, what was then comprehensive sex education in schools, and that they would, they would be conservative and they would bring up family values. And they would probably bring up that nasty old concept of religion, uh, and the beneficial effects on kids. So
Dr. Morse: (08:39)
The eighties, so even in the eighties, they were in a sense promoting the sexual revolution, even though, even though it was not as extreme as it is now. Um, and, and so it was abortion on the, on the doc.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (08:51)
Um, they, they just didn’t talk about it. I say that was, they didn’t, they didn’t say yay or nay. And that was the thing is we, we wanted them to say nay, and they would just sort of bury that. They also wanted them to bring up the social, uh, data in the, in the literature, the world’s literature that they said the benefit of, of a child growing up in a, a married family, intact, married, functional family with, um, you know, male and female biologic, biologic parents is probably has been proven to be the best environment for that child to promote education, lack of incarceration, lack of, uh, you know, drug abuse as an adult, et cetera, et cetera, because it’s all there. I mean, it’s, you know, there’s nothing that you can guide, but they just decided they weren’t going to advertise.
Dr. Morse: (09:41)
Right. Right. Yeah. That was the, those were kind of the opening Salvos of what became this massive sexual revolution. But, but breaking down the family, getting the fathers out of the family, you know, that was all part of the early phases of the whole thing. So you were there, you were there like having a RingLead, you know, a ringside seat with one of the professional organizations going, you know, going off the rails.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (10:03)
They were. And w and we pointed that out and I was actually sort of recommended quietly by the senior people that I had come to know and respect saying it, isn’t going to work this way. You know, we all know what you’re saying is true, but yeah, we all know what you’re saying is true, but it’s not gonna fly because the executive committee now is stacked about three to one with people who are extremely liberal. And
Dr. Morse: (10:28)
So, and those were academics,
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (10:30)
Academic
Dr. Morse: (10:31)
Academics, not practicing MDs, so much research research guys where they read
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (10:37)
Just academic positions, people who are public policy pediatricians, who hadn’t been in an office for ever, but we’re running a policy for local state governments.
Dr. Morse: (10:48)
I see. I see public health kind of people. I see. I see. Okay.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (10:53)
So these were MD PhDs who, you know, who had maybe never even set foot in an office, but were policy walks for think tanks and stuff. I see, I see. And they got voted. Yeah. I mean, the, the voting was manual back then it wasn’t electronic. And, you know, they probably had maybe eight or 10% of the membership ever vote. And so, you know, the people that wanted to get in and did campaigns amongst there, and one, I mean, I’m assuming the votes, I wasn’t there to count the votes. I don’t know how, if it was slanted or they were handpicked, but they, it’s interesting to look at the candidates they chose for president elect to be a vote, to be voted in. They were, uh, very rarely female. Uh, and if they were female, they picked a female that was going to be bound to lose.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (11:42)
Uh, just, I mean, it was just, it was kind of perverse, I mean, tell you this organization. And then they, they went off the rails with eliminating, um, the word chairman because it insinuated that it was a male person. Okay. That was the early demand of feminism. And so the academy proudly made a statement that we are eliminating that foul, foul term chairman and replacing it with chairperson. And I thought, look up chairperson in a dictionary and find out, you know, look up chairman. It doesn’t have a, uh, you know, a sex attached to it. Um, you know, if you want, you want to do a chair, woman or a chairman chair person is, you know, let’s be as unoffensive. And I thought this, this is crazy. These people are all about appearance and not about substance. Right. And my last legislative meeting, I, when I, I, before I left the military, I was in the Navy for 20 years.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (12:38)
I was the chairman of the, of the uniform services west, uh, chapter. It was a chapter in a district, a district eight, I think we were around. And I love the district because it had the mountain state Senate. It was just, it was, these were wonderful people who worked very hard and they were predominantly, you know, politically conservative. So I leave the, the military, I leave that position and I come to Georgia and I say, I want to be part of the Georgia chapter of the American academy of pediatrics. They welcomed me in, uh, they, they asked if I would run the legislative committee for the chapter, which I did, and I wrote the newsletter for the chapter. So I got back in the loop with the, the senior people at the academy. They all knew who I was. Uh, I was nominated every single year to be on the national committee of the AP for government, you know, federal government, legislative efforts, and also for state government legislative efforts.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (13:34)
And each time I somehow was not picked and just, oh, thank you so much. You know, you’ve done so much for the academy. And we just, and it’s not sour grapes. I saw what was happening. I was clearly a voice they did not want to hear. Right, right. So I, I sort of sat quietly thinking, well, what else, what other organization do I, you know, do I have to turn to? And, and less, it’s hard. Joe Zynga, who had been a past president of the AAP had started the American college. And he wrote me a personal letter and said, you know, I think you don’t know about us as an organization. Uh, I want to introduce you to this organization. I don’t want you to leave the American academy pediatrics, but I want you to join this organization. I think it speaks more to what I know you personally believe.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (14:25)
And bingo, you know, I joined right then and there. And I was so excited to see that there, here was an organization of pediatricians that actually said, we’re not going to go ahead and do politically correct stuff. We’re going to do scientifically valid stuff. You know, that’s what we’re based on. And I said, this is where I want to be. And it’s focused on the needs of the children. Absolutely. What is best for children, not for, you know, the, the views of the benefit of the adults. Right. And it, it does, it clearly looks at the benefit of the adults are at a child’s life, but it does not look at the once of adults at the exception of the, of what’s best for,
Dr. Morse: (15:05)
Was there a moment in here? What, what caused, w w where they’re set there, must’ve been a set of issues that drove you guys to do this, you know, that, that w what, what were the compelling issues?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (15:16)
It was interesting that the night is that what started the American college, was it at one of the national AAP meetings, uh, the, they announced their position statement on adoption of children by same-sex parents. And so that, and again, this was, this was not, you know, by this time the membership of the academy AAP was maybe 60,000. Um, and they did not ask membership about, for input on this statement. They just, the executive committee, which was very highly stacked on a highly liberal, uh, you know, politically correct. And as the other spectrum, uh, approve this committee’s recommendations, Nothing, nothing to the membership, nothing was passed and that it doesn’t work that way. But then the academy basically gets a group of people who are interested in something and passionate about it and get them to, you know, research stuff, write about it, and then put together a position statement. And then it’s, you know, edited back and forth until it’s clean and supposedly, and then the executive committee approves it that’s.
Dr. Morse: (16:25)
And so that’s how the tail wags the dog, the ideological tail wags that, what year was this? That they came out with that statement?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (16:32)
It was 2002. I believe they did this
Dr. Morse: (16:36)
Like early, that’s really early in this whole gay marriage process. That’s really,
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (16:41)
Um, and I may not have the exact year, but as it seems to me that it was the year that the, that the American college running to life because of that. And it wasn’t because of any, uh, antagonism toward the gay community. It was because the paper had no science to it. They had a position statement and then a technical paper, which had all of the references that proved why this statement should be made. And the conclusion was there is absolutely no difference at all in the outcome of children who are raised by same-sex families and adoption compared to, um, heterosexual families at all, that there’s no. Well, and they said, well, it’s not exactly true. There. We think that there might even be a benefit that in the same family, that, that sort of leans toward that being a little bit better, but it’s not statistically significant. I mean, that was their statement. So when you read something like that, you say, okay, well, let’s look and see where the data comes from. Right. Well, you look through the scientific and the majority of references were interviews with lesbian couples. All right, right now that’s not a science. If you ask a same-sex couple, are your children happy? Yes. You know, of course they are the right thing. Yes, of course. And so they said, well, there was, you see, we asked the same
Dr. Morse: (18:13)
Patterson, Charlotte Patterson out at Berkeley did, did one of the early studies of this matter. And she asked her friends, basically, she, she solicited people from lesbian coffee houses and, uh, newspapers and so on. And that’s how she found her sample. And, you know, it’s nice to Charlotte, Patterson’s friends are all doing so nicely, but you know, it’s really not representative of anything. Even, even assuming they’re telling you the truth, which might not be, they might not be the most objective.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (18:43)
Th that was the majority of references. And there was a pediatrician, I believe her name. And I don’t want to put her name on the board, but she was actually a pediatric intensivist and sort of a bioethicist. And she went through the position paper point by point wrote a letter to the, uh, the journal pediatrics where this publication was, it was stated and, and refuted the entire thing. So it just pointed out, this is, this is not valid. This is not valid. This is not valid. They didn’t accept her letter for that. And so there you go, you have this situation and the pediatricians who were then members of the AP said, we’re, we, we can’t be part of this organization. If they’re not gonna stand for science, it’s not that we’re against same-sex marriage couples, uh, having the opportunity, it’s you, you are making a statement, which is clearly not scientifically valid.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (19:39)
So how can we stand up for this anymore? Or what are we going to do? We’re going to create an organization of pediatricians where the science leads us, not the ideology leads us. And that’s, so that’s how this happened. Now that has been construed, uh, through the lens of the act, you know, sort of the gay activist community is that the American college of pediatricians isn’t homophobic organization profoundly, profoundly anti-gay profoundly, uh, racist and to on and on and on and on. Right. But that’s, that’s where the label comes. When you Google, uh, search the, uh, the college, is it the first thing that comes up on Wikipedia is an anti LGBT organization of right. Wing, conservative pediatricians. And, and it’s just, that’s not the case, you know?
Dr. Morse: (20:28)
Well, that happens to us too. Welcome to the club, Dr. Van meter, the club that happens to us too, and for the same reason, and for the same reason that we don’t share the consensus on the science. And, you know, w if you don’t mind, I mean, this is a great story about the AAP and the, and the college. Right. But, but let’s take a minute to talk about how the consensus gets manufactured, because I heard you have a little talk about that. Just kind of point by point, how you start with this snowball study or something. And then it builds around that. Yeah. Explain to people how that happens, because people who, people, the ordinary person who consumes the news, you know, who’s not behind it in some way, but who’s just listening to the news. They go, there’s some, I just heard about this study and it doesn’t sound right to me. It’s if you feel that you are probably correct. So I think it’s going to be helpful to our people, you know, to hear you explain where did this consensus ever come from?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (21:30)
Um, I think the current one, the one that’s in our face is the issue of transgender children. Um, the concept of, of being transgender, uh, as, as a, as a normative, uh, was a group of individuals who were like-minded at the American psychiatric association, developing the fifth edition of the diagnostic statistical manual, mental health DSM. And they, they had, uh, uh, a, a meeting which was recorded and I’m not, they did not realize it was being recorded, uh, where they were going to essentially, uh, pressure the chairman of the committee that was writing the statement on gender, uh, in Congress, Dr. Kenneth Zucker from Toronto, he was the, essentially the world’s expert on that, on that subject. Um, he was, you know, he’d written extensively, he’s referenced extensively. Um, and they said he, he wanted to keep the gender identity as a disorder because he, he viewed it as a mental disorder.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (22:34)
And they, the committee of activists said, we don’t want that. We want that removed. And we want to get rid of it. Uh, it needs to be normative. Uh, and so we’re going to pressure you, if you don’t agree with us and take this off as a disorder, we are going to make sure that the Canadian government shuts down your practice. He acquiesced and said, well, let’s not completely eliminate the concept of a disorder, because if you do that, then where are these children going to go and get healthcare? And who’s going to pay for it if it’s normal, if it’s not these days. Yeah. Well, who’s going to fund this. Who’s going to do their surgeries.
Dr. Morse: (23:18)
It’s insurance. What is the insurance company going to say about funding stuff? That’s not a disorder, so you got to get it in the disc. You gotta get it in the manual somehow.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (23:27)
And the manual as gender dysphoria, which is dysphoria, is a term of, of sort of, uh, an emotional discomfort. Okay. Um, and so we’ll call it gender dysphoria so that the kids that are suffering can at least see a mental health provider can, can get medical, can get surgical procedures done that you’re pushing for, uh, you know, and he talked them into that. Dr. Zach, are you talking about, can of soccer talk them into not eliminating the concept, that there was anything that was, uh, uh, a disease state, if you will, or something that required treatment, uh, but to leave it as that. So that’s what it, wasn’t, DSM-V that DSM three and four headed at gender identity disorder. DSM five comes out in 2013, published saying, it’s gender dysphoria. Interestingly, in that document, they open the statement about gender dysphoria as saying that this resolves in upwards of 95% of boys in the 80 to 85% girls, by the time they pass through natural puberty statement in the DSM five, which is still there.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (24:35)
Okay. So that is the preamble for the DSM five is published. It is also the preamble and the American psychological Association’s handbook on human sexuality, on the section on gender disorders that are gendered. As far as that, uh, the vast majority of patients will resolve their gender dysphoria and be comfortable living in their biologic with their gender being the same as their biologic sex. If they get to pass through natural puberty, it’s stated there as well. So when you watch what happens in the, in the pediatric literature, um, the proponents of affirmation of, of children in their, in Congress gender most notable
Dr. Morse: (25:21)
One week, let’s put affirmation in scare quotes, because this is a really scary concept, right. That, that treatment consistent affirming the child’s stated identity. Right. That’s affirmative. Everybody. Okay. Just, I’m trying to keep you listeners. I’m trying to keep you oriented in reality here. Okay. We’ve kind of entered the Twilight zone. So that’s what affirmation that’s affirmative. Yeah.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (25:49)
Okay. Affirmation. It sounds like a very positive, like a beneficial term. Like if you affirm somebody, how in the world are you being, you know, doing anything harmful to them, you know, but that, that in the language has been captured by the crowd that, that believes that children can live a life in the, in the, in Congress, gender successfully, uh, through adulthood with good mental health. And so that, that is their, their mantra is that it’s better. If a child is confused and doesn’t have a gender that matches their gender identity, that matches their biologic sex, that you push them in the direction of where they wish to go from that standpoint, because they’re better off in the long run and mental health improves suicide rates decrease. That is the mantra. I mean, that is stated unequivocally, it keeps getting stated at stated at a state. And when there is absolutely no data to prove it as a matter of fact, the most recent data that proves that it is absolutely false. It does not improve it. Right. And so, you know, we knocked the legs out from underneath it, but this app, this concept has been introduced and repeated the lie a thousand times. And people just sort of assume, well, if I hear it and I hear it, and I never hear anything really contrary to that, um, then it must be true.
Dr. Morse: (27:13)
Let’s go back to Dr. Zucker. Then Dr. Zucker kind of gave in, but kind of made an important statement at the same time, but still in the DSM says most kids get outgrow it. But so somehow they created a, a scientific consensus that with some fake studies, you know, so we got to help people understand how the studies in this area, uh, take place.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (27:38)
I’ll give you an example of one that’s quoted repeatedly. It’s a study from Seattle, uh, where their transgender clinics, uh, had a survey of members of the family and the children of kids that were treated in their program that were affirmed. This was just a social affirmation. This is taking a young child who says to that one of their parents or their school teacher. I think I’m a, a boy when I’m, you know, actually biologically a girl or vice versa, um, those children would be, were sent to the Seattle, uh, gender studies clinic. I’m not sure what the title of it is. And they went through social affirmation. They were, the parents were counseled on, this is how you do it. These, you know, shame on you for, for being, uh, adverse to this concept. Your child knows exactly what’s right for your, for themselves.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (28:33)
And you will learn how to do this. Your family will be taught how to socially accept this. You’ll be well versed and taught how to change pronouns, how to, you know, apologize profusely when you’re accidentally, uh, call your child by their original name. Uh, we’ll get what’s called dead naming. So they, they instructed these families on what to do after one year, they sent out a request to the, to the, uh, and I don’t know if it was everybody, but they said, if you’re interested in answering a study about the welfare of your children and in our clinic, please contact us. We’re doing a survey it’s called convenient sampling. It’s not, we did every single family. We tracked them down. You know, we did an evaluation. No, it’s tell me, uh, if you’re willing to take a survey on the subject. So it selects people that, you know, are, are interested in giving feedback, predominantly positive and lo and behold in their study, they said 100% of the families surveyed said their children were much, much happier.
Dr. Morse: (29:45)
Okay. Wonder what happened to the children who work much, much happier? What happened,
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (29:50)
I guess, what gets you at the who? The evaluators, where the parents right now, if you’re a parent who has put their child into this circumstance, uh, and you haven’t had a reason to do it, which might be perverse, uh, it might be part of family dysfunction, uh, guilt, all sorts of things. And you’re, you’re asked if your child is happier. Um, you know, you did your screaming toddler get what they want and stop throwing fits. And the answer’s. Yes, they, they, I gave them everything that my young child wanted. I gave him everything. And they’re sure happier, you know, I mean, what kind of science is that, first of all, one year later, one year later, one year
Dr. Morse: (30:34)
Later, and how, how old were
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (30:36)
These kids? These kids were between, they were pre pubertal. So age five, up through age eight or nine, even until age 11. I see. I see. And so, um, so there was, and the control group that they had so called were the siblings of these kids. It’s not a controlled group at all. So they, they, they published this. It was so absolutely inept as a paper and a study that it should have by the editorial staff, then say, sorry, we can’t accept this paper. This is embarrassing. It’s your bias being displayed. And without the scientific basis, your references don’t know, your study design is flawed. Can’t do it, you know, go to someplace else. Thank you very much interesting paper, but we can’t publish it. That would be the standard for any other scientific. You bet didn’t happen was how much the next, soon after it was published.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (31:36)
And an interesting thing is when you look at when the study was done and how quickly the paper was submitted and published, it was like, wait a minute. This was kind of rushed through. We normally, a paper is submitted in the September one year published in June of the following year. This one was submitted and published within months, couple of months. So it, you know, we saw this paper and said, what a piece of junk, I mean, pediatrics, the journal should be embarrassed that letters to the editor, which were not accepted for publication, that was quoted as the bedrock of benefit of children being affirmed in their, in their, in Congress gender. And so then when you say that on the morning television shows, when it’s reported again in New York times, when it comes up in the Washington post and it’s on NBC nightly news and CNN, they, they just rollercoaster this.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (32:32)
As you see, you see, you see, this is an incredibly landmark study, a beautifully done, and unequivocally approves the fact that in affirming these children and their cognitive gender is so beneficial and therefore should become the standard of care. And, uh, we accept no comments from contrary opinion. Thank you for having a nice day. This has been quoted in little papers. There’s a, there, there convenience news blurbs that come to two subspecialties, pediatrics being one of them, endocrinology and other, and where they’ll say, oh, it’s, it’s written by a, uh, a staff writer, oh, this new study published proves blah, blah, blah, blah. Interview. The author is memory. Remember happy, happy, great news news, best study ever. And that’s published right. Invite commentary at the end. But when you write commentary to question the author who wrote that who’s not a physician and not a scientist, just a writer journalist, they don’t answer you back.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (33:32)
You get a it’s nothing’s published and you’re you’re ignored. So this is how it builds. It’s building on a house of cards where there there’s no basis in science. You then fast forward to 2020 in June, there was a published paper by cheque turbine. Who’s a psychologist who is part of the transgender clinic in Boston. And he is a profound, uh, you know, uh, LGBT activist. Uh, you know, well-known in terms of promoting, uh, political activism in, in the fields of interest. And he, um, he writes a paper with an it survey 25,000 people and looked at the benefit of blocking puberty and the mental health of these, of these kids. What happened to their mental health improved because they had access to puberty blockers, or if they were denied the blocking of period, did they have a worse outcome? And he, so the, the, you know, an F reader will say, gosh, twenty-five thousand people serving.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (34:40)
That’s a powerful number of people. Wow. Yeah. Well, if you read into the article, you find out the survey that they did, they surveyed basically a transgender activist interest group put out a survey in, in 2015 that had a gazillion questions on it. And they said, if you answer these, you get, you get a gift card. If you answered the survey more than once, you’re only going to get the one gift card. And that statement, because if you answer it more than once, so this is called padding, the election box. I mean, uh, yeah, exactly. So this is, that’s how they, they have 25,000 answers. Now they call it down to any person who had either entertained the idea of a puberty blocker or got a puberty blockers. And that got down to about 190 people out of the 25. They don’t, they don’t tell you that upfront the
Dr. Morse: (35:38)
24,000, the other 24,000 are irrelevant to the study, essentially.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (35:46)
And it was a retrospective memory requested it wasn’t an interview with these individuals. You didn’t know actually what happened. It was the way they worded the question. Uh, and so they, they fiddled with statistics and came up with the fact that the S the mental health problems were much greater in the population of people who knew about puberty blockers. You requested puberty blockers, but didn’t get them compared to those who knew about puberty blockers and were treated with them. Well, the problem was that the data that they put up when you actually looked at it proved the opposite, that there was actually potentially that their mental health issues were worse than the ones that actually were treated. And this, this brought about six or seven letters to the editor saying, we just looked at the table number or whatever it was, and your data is backwards. So you
Dr. Morse: (36:41)
Were one of the letter writers.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (36:43)
And so it became obvious that this was a new, and this was the newest landmark. This made the morning talk shows like
Dr. Morse: (36:52)
Dr. VanMeeder, you, you missed one of the important steps of this whole research process. You gathered the convenience sample. You do the analysis, you get it published in record time. No one objects, no comment, no negative comments can never be found. And a press release goes out the very next day to all of the mainstream press. So that it doesn’t say
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (37:14)
They actually, they actually did publish a few of the letters to the editor.
Dr. Morse: (37:18)
Yes, they did. Yeah. You guys stayed on him. You guys stayed on him.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (37:22)
So, but it didn’t pressure the, the journal to, to retract it or require that the author of his paper. And it was, this was just, oh, this is just a contrary opinion, you know? And, and we’re, so we’re going to let it go by. But this study then was cited by the editor in chief of the journal pediatrics at the end of 2020, it was cited as the paper of the year. Wow. And I personally wrote a letter, a letter personal letter, you know, for his attention only to the, to the editor. And I said, I just want to call to your attention, the mistake that you’ve made in calling the, if you call that the best paper of 2020, your journal has just sunk to the bottom of the sea in terms of its reputation. How are you not aware of the politics? Are you not aware of the ineptness of the, of the, of the writer and the conclusions that were, that were, uh, reached that were, that were faulty? Um, you know, we need, we need to understand that these, your, your journal is publishing stuff that is not based on science, but it’s based on ideology. Never got an acknowledgement. Of course,
Dr. Morse: (38:32)
Of course, of course. Yeah. You know, these stories of inept research, uh, and this pattern that you’re talking about, you’re seeing it here most recently, everyone in the transgender field, before that it was same-sex parenting before that it was abortion, abortion, and mental health outcomes, abortion, and, uh, breast cancer link, same kind of thing happened. There were people who show up at these meetings and say, Hey, we have contrary evidence, we have contrary opinion. And that just disappears out of the record. So this process has been going on for quite a while within that, within the medical profession. Uh, I, if we can, I’d like to get back to your organization, your new organization, the American college of pediatricians, because I really hope that some people watching this will be motivated to join, um, and, and get involved with what you’re doing. Um, and even if they’re a pediatrician who isn’t reading these journals and so on and tracking all this stuff, which is obviously a very important, there are other things that the college does, um, that we should be letting people know about, because w I, I want to see you get more members.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (39:41)
W you know, we are beginning to see a blossoming of the membership numbers, which is, which is encouraging. Um, the college puts out statements on things that are to the benefit of children on a whole array of subjects, the concept of the family dinner table and what it does in the, in the, in the, to the benefit of the child, to the benefit of the family structure. Uh, it looks back at sociology of these issues and the benefit of better nutrition. Um, and so there, it’s not stuff that’s always about, uh, the LGBT community. That’s a small, it’s a hot button part of what we do, but there are, uh, descriptions of wonderful, valid on parenting, the concept of parenting, the concept of, of what, uh, what Punit, what punishment and authoritative versus authoritarian parenting styles and the benefit to the child. Um, the concept of the bonding of the infant in utero to the mom, and then the, the postpartum, uh, chemistry that goes on, that’s the re these, these are a wonderful educational papers that just bring to light the newest science about what is so incredible about the mother, baby unit, both prenatally and postnatally, and why things happen that we’ve sort of seen happen, but we scratch our heads and say, isn’t that wonderful wonder why these things are all elucidated and beautifully written, scientific papers that are available at the college.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (41:09)
And so our website, which is www best number for children.org, you can go there and just click on the, on the position statements and educational papers, resources for parents. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s an organization where the people who are looking for a pediatrician, they can find somebody who was going to be a scientifically based person. And that, that, you know, somebody who has sort of a moral fiber to them there, who is a Hippocratic oath physician, you know, first do no harm. So those are the kinds of pediatricians that joined the American college specifically, and, and for a very strong reason, they wish to be recognized as being ethical and being a science-based and purposely putting the children up in the front as the most important thing that we protect and, and letting the adult wants that social needs, that the parents not interfere with that. So, um, that, that’s the sort of the idea of the college and the motto of the college best for children.
Dr. Morse: (42:13)
Well, that’s really, that’s really wonderful and encouraging. And many of those papers are very helpful, you know, and then people who are struggling with some of these issues, I think can find a lot of, a lot of help, a lot of things that will stiffen your spine. When you have to go to your own doctor and say, I don’t want my daughter to do this or that I don’t, I don’t want this or that treatment. I would prefer to go in this direction. You’ll feel more confident when you go to your own doctor and that’s so, so it’s helpful for parents. And it’s also helpful for members of the pediatric profession. Are there nurses, are there specialized pediatric nurses who can join your organization? Or is it just doctors?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (42:45)
No. And the, the, the actual fellows have to be board certified pediatricians and associate members can be, uh, people who are boarded in family medicine, uh, pediatric subspecialties, uh, surgeons of various stripes, uh, counselors, uh, nurses, nurse practitioners. They can all be associate members. Then there can be just friends of the college, or which are individuals who have no stake in the medical game, other than they wish to support the organization, because they believe in the principles that we’re, that we issue.
Dr. Morse: (43:20)
Listen up, listen up, Ruth, all of you Ruthie’s get over there and sign up because we’re all interested in what they’re doing. We all have a stake in what you’re doing.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (43:29)
We do Amicus briefs. We do, um, you know, position statements. We put ourselves, uh, you know, in the pathway for legislators who need information on children and children’s health, uh, to give sort of a logical scientific input to combat the, sort of the social science, social engineering ideologies, which are swirling around in medicine today.
Dr. Morse: (43:52)
I’d like to ask one, just one question briefly, which is, you mentioned the Hippocratic oath. I was not aware until very recently that doctors no longer are required to take the Hippocratic oath. When, when you were trained, did you take the Hippocratic oath? And when did that go away? Can you tell us just a little bit about that?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (44:09)
It, you know, I, I graduated from medical school in 1973, and I remember sitting in the, there was a, the chapel building at the medical college of Virginia as I was named at the time. And we swore the Hippocratic oath. And I didn’t know why it sort of was a little unusual because it was, we were, we were sort of swearing an oath to a Greek God. And so I didn’t see, and I was thinking that, that, but I believe in what it says. I mean, whoever I’m swearing to, I’m turning to my own God in my head. Um, th th this is what I will do. I will do no harm. I will not take the life of the child. I will not promote or a patient. I will not, uh, you know, perform a portions, uh, again, premium known necessary. I, for above all do no harm.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (44:57)
And so I remember that. And then of course the graduation ceremony for medical school is a pretty, you know, spine tingling, a wonderful experience, and that kept it off. It was a, to me meant a great deal. Um, that was 1973, then, you know, progressively over the, probably the next two decades, we began hearing modifications of that, particularly after Roe V Wade, when they said, we’re going, gonna drop out the abortion part. We’re not going to, no, that’s not going to be part of what we say. And so they began modifying it and then, you know, soft pedaling here. And eventually almost it was, it was gutted. Uh, and in some there’s some, some current places where there’s nothing that even resembles the Hippocratic coats and, and no oats at all. So it’s, it’s moving with the times, you know, like you do. Yeah,
Dr. Morse: (45:45)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a very, that’s a very troubling development. When you think about the history of that, and kind of the bedrock principle of, of the, of the position of trust that society, places in a physician, the person who society has after all, uh, contributed to your education or your skills and so on. And you’re making a note that you’re going to use it for the benefit of the patient and not for the benefit of the state or whoever whoever’s bossing you around. Um, I, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to Dr. Zucker because Dr. Zucker, what happened next? W where, sorry, everyone, and this is a little inside baseball, but I think you’ll find it interesting. What happened then to Dr. Zucker, he, he kind of won that round in that these guys came and threatened him, that his clinic would be shut down if he didn’t cave. And so he, he, he forged them from your description. Now, he, um, he forged a kind of compromise with them. Um, but that wasn’t the end of it. No.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (46:44)
Um, the, uh, the, the, uh, activist went to the Canadian government and had his clinic shut down in 2013. And he was removed from his position, uh, in the Institute of, uh, uh, addiction medicine, which is where, where is his organization? Uh, lie, his staff, people were still left behind, but he was removed. And he was told he couldn’t, couldn’t say anything. He sued the Canadian government and won a settlement of 400 and twenty-five thousand Canadian dollars. He republished a, uh, a new review of the, uh, the P the patient’s number of patients who desist. Um, and that was published just this last year. Uh, and again, it proved that the vast majority of kids, if given significant counseling and, you know, delving into the deep depths of their mental health and their, their, their world and their family and the family’s mental health, that if you do that, and you focus on healing, the wounds that are there, that are created, that have been created by circumstance, um, that the vast majority of these kids that desist and, and end up realigning their gender identity with their biological sex. So this is a new study. The, his, his prior study, which was published in 2011 has been poo-pooed as old data. You see, that’s the other, the other new thing is we have a newer study where that’s from 10 years ago. That was, then this is now we know so much more. We have so much more experience. Now, this is the newest data. And it came out and re reaffirmed what he had published previously. And so it’s, it’s just delightful that he is still pushing. Yeah. You know, what, for what he believes in,
Dr. Morse: (48:25)
How, how did these activists get so much power that they could have said to him however long ago, this was w when the original, the original confrontation of clothes, as long ago, as that they could say to him, credibly, we can get you shut down out of Canada. How do they get that kind of power? What do they do?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (48:42)
Um, it’s all blackmail, and, you know, it, they kind of threatening, it’s all threats. You know, we’re going to you going to do this to you, if you don’t. Okay. And so, uh, in academia, that kind of blackmail, if you will happens all the time, uh, oh yeah. Th that’s, that’s why my colleagues who were in academia don’t open their mouth. I don’t want to name their names, but there are people who, uh, who mentored me as an endocrine fellow, uh, who are worldwide well-renowned, uh, folks, people who were my colleagues, uh, who I trained with people who I trained, uh, or a new oven training, who would fully agree with that, that, that this whole thing is a, as a manufactured, uh, you know, ideology based, uh, treatment concept and not based on science and sh and it’s harmful to Joe, it it’s clearly harmful to children. Uh, they all believe it, but they can’t open their mouth and say it for fear that they will a be removed from their faculty positions. Chastised will not be able to be published in any journal in anything they write. And that is a fact that happens. It is, it is academic labs.
Dr. Morse: (49:54)
This is, this is what’s curious. Okay. And bears thought at least, or discussion is how does a handful of activists get the power to have somebody removed somebody like of the stature of Kenneth Zucker? How did they get that kind of power? Who, who are they blackmailing? Who are they pushing around? You know, um, uh, how does that even work? That they could get the Canadian government to do what they wanted?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (50:18)
Well, it is, it is that they use fear. Okay. They, they basically anybody who has a contrary opinion is a hater and a bigot. And that is the premise. Let’s say, do you want haters and bigots on your faculty? Right. We will go after you until you get that, or a big get off, uh, uh, the, uh, author Ragnar, Margaret naris, and university of Texas was hounded and hounded hounded. And he stood tall and he just, he just said, come, come get me. You know, and the university was thinking of suspending him on the faculty. Um, very interestingly, uh, a giant giant donor for the university of Texas may wrote a little letter to the president of the university saying, uh, I think I’m going to have to withdraw my multi-million dollar donation, unless you give Dr. Regnerus and tenure
Dr. Morse: (51:11)
Promotion promote it.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (51:14)
So, um, and things like that happened, I mean, you know, people with money, money speaks, okay. And you have the Pritzker foundation and you have all of the,
Dr. Morse: (51:23)
So it’s a combination, it’s a combination of the money, you know, and there’s a lot of money in transgenderism, which you just mentioned, the, some of the foundations that have ties to the pharmaceutical companies and so on. So there’s that whole aspect of, but there’s also the activism itself. It’s, it’s the, the, the activists who are willing to make nuisance of themselves, um, you know, bothering people and hounding them and staying on it and, you know, kind of being unrelenting, relentless about it. Um, and nobody on our side is willing to be a counter nuisance.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (51:56)
Well, those of us that are counter nuisance is they’re not our shunt. I mean, I, I have, uh, I was on the pediatric scientific committee of the American association of clinical endocrinologists. And so I, they said, well, you know, transgender is a real hot button subject. And I said, yes, I said, but I think we need to have a balanced presentation. You know, we need to have both sides because there are two sides to this. There are those who would give children medicine and give young adults surgical interventions that, that can lead to harm, uh, or benefit, but it needs to be debated. It needs to be presented in an open forum. So I would suggest we have a balanced panel and then an opportunity for those in attendance to do Q and a afterwards and make it make an afternoon. I mean, make it a open gather, because what I have found when I have given my talks in front of endocrinologists, 30, 75% of the people in the room are nodding about what I’ve said. So there is there’s that hidden silent majority who won’t say anything for fear of retribution, but they want, they want an opportunity to be able to raise their hand, but they never get it. Right.
Dr. Morse: (53:12)
So what happened to your proposal
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (53:15)
Was it was for, you know, we, we set signed off on that. We said the meeting is going to be in Houston, we’re going to have the presentation. And I waited for them to, uh, essentially ask who I would recommend for the panel on our side. And when I, it got to be about four months before the meeting, I said that I, who are panelists and the meeting organizer said, what panelists? I said, you know, for the, oh, we already have Dr. Rosenthal coming to speak. He’s going to go, oh, he’s wonderful. He’s going to give us a talk. I said, wait a minute, you were supposed to have a panel. That was what the committee recommended. So the next committee member meeting, I brought that right up. And Robert Rappaport, who’s a pediatric endocrinologist from Mount Sinai, a very, very prestigious, wonderful, brilliant guy. He said, well, I don’t know how that happened. We’ll have to look into that. And one of the committee members said, oh, it’s okay. You can just be there at the meeting. And when the presentation is over, you can ask him a question from the floor, and then you can get, you can kind of introduce your idea there. I said, excuse me, but that’s not how it works.
Dr. Morse: (54:22)
Come on. Yeah.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (54:23)
Yeah. So that happened the next year I was more proactive and I wrote emails to the whole and they were ignored. I never heard back. So I did that for the AACE. I actually did the same thing for the endocrine society, uh, national meetings, and have never had anybody answered me or call me back. And then most recently I sent in an email to the pediatric endocrine society, which is a, uh, organization to which I belong as well, which is completely politically ideologically outside of, of the transgender, uh, crowd. And, um, and I said, this is an opportunity that you have as an organization to do something that’s never been done before, never been done before. And that is to have an open forum discussion, have a balanced panel, what a beautiful thing. It would be for our, our wonderful scientifically based organization, you know, to do this and show that we are breaking through and bringing science and debating it in front of our colleagues and letting everyone have a chance to comment. And we come away with this learning from each other, you know, there is not been any opportunity that’s been provided where we get to be in the same room at the same time, talk and ask each other questions. Okay. Never is. It’s just made not to happen. And so I personally not heard anything back from that,
Dr. Morse: (55:46)
But what I want to close on close this conversation on is the fact that you are the president of an alternative to the, to these organizations. The American college of pediatricians is, is a science-based alternative, but you’re still active. You’re still active in those other organizations. So what I want to say to everybody in the healthcare professions is that there are paths where you can do something, get something done inside the organizations and outside the organizations, but you need to do something. You need to do something that Dr. Van made her think of what they’d be doing. If you weren’t there being a thorn in their, I mean, at least they have to, you know, at least they know you’re in the room, they know you’re listening, you know? Um, and so they, they don’t acknowledge you, but they know that you’re there, you know? Um, so I think it, it, it does, it does matter. Um, can we close with, by telling people again where they can learn about the American college of pediatricians and what you would recommend to the average person, the average parent average grandparent, what action items can people take that would be helpful to the cause that you’re promoting?
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (56:54)
Well, first of all, every parent needs to be an activist. Uh, they need to be an activist. If there are other local school boards where you can put your foot down about the comprehensive sex education or critical race theory, uh, that is being introduced, uh, you can, you can essentially go to your pediatrician if you will. And say, I heard about this organization and I want you to look into it because I want to be using a pediatrician that bases their practice on science and not ideology, and, you know, overlook negative things that you’re going to when you Google search this, because that’s all, it shows up very carefully crafted by Google, you know, and their influences to L you know, to put anything beneficial at the end of the list and everything critical, which is name calling upfront. We don’t, I even hate to acknowledge that.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (57:43)
Uh, but it’s, it’s what people will find is there’ll be zoning to say, well, no, nevermind. And you have to look past the, the, uh, the, the tech world’s takeover of information and information. Once you let that, let you see or want you to say, and literally go to the website, the website speaks for itself, www B E S T number for children.org. It go there. If it’s beautiful videos, which, which look at the, at the, at the, uh, scope of what the college believes in and how we function and what we do, and the documents that we have there that are, uh, resources for parents, and certainly resources for pediatricians and healthcare providers, uh, social workers, psychologists, mental health folks. Um, if we are wide open to serve you, to be able to have you look at us, join us, um, swell our ranks, help us be the most powerful organization we can be so that we can really lobby for what’s best for children,
Dr. Morse: (58:45)
Dr. Quintin van meter. Thank you so much for being our guests. That was a great place to stop this conversation. And I really hope everybody who’s watching. We’ll hit that share button below here and share this video with lots and lots of people, because you know, people who are going to be impacted by, but what Dr. Van meter’s had to say. So thank you once again, president of the American college of pediatricians, Dr. Quintin van meter.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter: (59:10)
Thank you Dr. Jay, very much happy to have been able to be here today to speak and look forward to helping you out in any way we can.