Federal prosecutors on Friday dismissed criminal charges against a Texas doctor accused of illegally obtaining and sharing patients’ health documents from Texas Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Ethan Haim, 34, was facing a four-count indictment after prosecutors alleged that he leaked documents to a conservative activist about the hospital’s gender-transition services for minors, according to court documents. He was charged with wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information.
In February 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who sought gender-affirming care for their children shortly after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued his opinion on the practice. An attorney general opinion is an interpretation of existing law, and cannot create “new provisions in the law or correct unintended, undesirable effects of the law,” according to the Texas AG’s website.
About a month later, Texas Children’s Hospital announced that the hospital would pause its gender-affirming services for minors.
Haim, a Dallas-based surgeon, worked as a doctor at Texas Children’s Hospital during his residency at Baylor College of Medicine resident from 2018 through 2023. He requested his login to the hospital’s electronic system be reactivated in April 2023. A month later, he shared documents with Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist.
An unsealed indictment last year alleged that Haim obtained personal information including patients’ names, treatment codes and the attending physician’s name through the electronic system without authorization.
The order dismissing those allegations was submitted by acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Lowery and signed by Judge David Hittner in the U.S. district court for the Southern District of Texas on Friday. Federal prosecutors in the order did not provide an explanation for the dismissal.
Haim’s allegations came to light in an article published by activist Christopher Rufo in 2023 claiming that Texas Children’s Hospital doctors continued to provide gender-affirming care to minors a year after pledging it would halt those services. In another article last year, Haim confirmed that he provided information about patients that received care to Rufo.
Rufo cited whistleblower documents in his allegations that doctors were encouraged to continue gender treatment for minors with the use of puberty blockers and hormones. The documents provided by Haim contained no information that “identified any individual,” Rufo said.
In a previous statement, Texas Children’s Hospital said that the hospital has only provided services in compliance with state law.
“Our client is a mandatory reporter of child abuse who reported as a whistleblower to the State of Texas what he had seen in his hospital,” Marcella Burke, Haim’s attorney previously told Houston Public Media. “It is our opinion that this is the government going out of its way to prosecute a whistleblower.”
