What is Anti-Trans Leaker Eithan Haim Accused of by the US Gov?
The government alleges Haim sought the re-activation of his lapsed access to healthcare records at a hospital he no longer worked at for the purposes of leaking health records to a conservative activist.
by Evan Urquhart
In 2023, a medical resident leaked records describing the care of transgender children at Texas Children’s Hospital to conservative activist Chris Rufo. The records, which involved a relatively small number of patients, included the sex, age, and diagnosis of each patient, along with the reason for the visit, the name of the doctor they had seen, and the exact date and time of their appointment. For the most parts, the children’s visits had been related to their treatment with puberty blockers, fully reversible medications which pause puberty for trans children who are considered too young to move on to hormone therapies such as estrogen or testosterone, whose effects can be more difficult to reverse. Almost all of the visits described the purpose as replacing a puberty blocking implant that had previously been implanted in the youth.
As reported extensively by Assigned Media, a right-wing media frenzy followed the release of the records, which were partially redacted to remove the patients’ names. At the time, Rufo attributed the leak to an anonymous source. The man would later come forward to identify himself as Eithan Haim.
Now, a newly released indictment by the U. S. Attorney General for the Southern District of Texas, provides a clearer picture of what authorities have alleged was not only a felony violation of the U. S. medical privacy provisions in HIPAA, but as a malicious invasion of patient privacy with the intent to cause harm.
The indictment claims that, by 2023, when Haim accessed the records he went on to leak, his residency had not included any rotations at Texas Children’s Hospital since 2021. It says Haim falsely represented himself as needing access to TCH’s electronic record keeping system as part of care for adult patients, but in reality no such adult patients existed. Once he’d been granted access through this ruse, the indictment alleges Haim accessed the records of patients who weren’t under his care, records he had no authorization to view. Instead, he shared the records to “Person 1” (who can be interpreted to be Chris Rufo), and that Person 1 proceeded to publish HIPAA-protected information on Twitter and other media outlets.
The indictment also describes HIPAA training Haim received as a student at Baylor College of Medicine, which included information about how to properly report (or “blow the whistle”) if a resident had any concerns about medical issues or child abuse. Leaking information to the press is not considered an acceptable method of raising concerns about medical issues under HIPAA, and a person who does so would not be protected by whistleblower protections.
Haim’s stated reasons for the leak are also briefly touched on in the document. It explains that, while the Texas attorney general had issued guidance claiming that gender-affirming healthcare was illegal under existing Texas law, that an AG does not have the power to reinterpret existing law and make previously legal behavior illegal through the stroke of a pen. It’s somewhat unclear if Haim has ever publicly claimed to have exposed illegal behavior, as the focus of the stories about his leaks dealt with the fact that TCH had announced they were ending their program to treat transgender youth but a few youth had continued to be seen by doctors as evidenced by the leaks.
For more information on what HIPAA has to say about personally identifiable health information, our story last week that broke the news of Haim’s indictment has more.
Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media and an incoming member of the 2024-2025 Knight Science Journalism fellowship class at MIT.