Hospitals ‘Got Rich’ and Were ‘Mutilating’ Children—Vance, HHS Officials Announce Report

• August 13, 2026

Protesters with Gender Liberation Movement and ACT UP demonstrate outside the Department of Health and Human Services while protesting the Trump administration’s plan to cut federal funding to clinics providing care for transgender youth on February 17, 2026 in Washington, DC.

Protesters with the Gender Liberation Movement and ACT UP demonstrate outside the Department of Health and Human Services while protesting the Trump administration’s plan to cut federal funding to clinics providing care for transgender youth on Feb. 17, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s administration has identified hundreds of medical institutions that turned children into lifelong patients through gender-related “sex-rejecting procedures for minors,” according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The effort marks yet another move by the administration against medical institutions that provide so-called gender-affirming care, as well as the “fraudulent insurance coding” that was used to pay for it.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance, standing alongside HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Assistant Secretary Adm. Brian Christine, announced the release of “Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of ‘Gender Medicine.’” The report details how doctors and hospitals convince children to undergo sex changes for profit.

The report marks the first time the federal agency has analyzed the financial motives that push hospitals to advocate for such practices, sometimes without patients’ informed consent.

“The findings raise serious questions about what the families were told, what insurers were told, and how these procedures were billed,” Kennedy stated at a press conference.

According to the report, more than 225 hospitals and clinics are among the institutions that persuade children and families to undergo such gender-related procedures. In addition, the report reviews nationwide claims data from 2015 through 2025 to see how these were funded.

“[The report] identifies approximately $50 million in insurance claims for puberty blockers billed using endocrine disorder diagnostic code E34.9 (Endocrine Disorder, Unspecified). It further reports that nearly $11 million in claims for patients ages 13–17 were billed using a diagnosis code for precocious puberty E301—findings the report says warrant additional review of insurance coding practices,” an HHS press release states.

The officials said those actions have been referred to the Department of Justice and the HHS Office of Inspector General for potentially violating federal law.

“If the medical establishment failed children, we will confront that failure and hold them accountable,” Christine said at the press conference.

Christine said his predecessor under the Biden administration, Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, pushed gender-affirming care for minors. “And there’s nothing caring about that,” Christine stated. “These are sex-rejecting, mutilating, transgender procedures.”

Christine added that despite the Biden administration’s efforts, the battle against transgender surgeries for children is changing course.

Hundreds of hospitals and clinics mentioned in the report, the Justice Department said, “preyed on vulnerable children” and convinced their families that their kids “needed life-altering medical treatments” instead of “compassion and counseling.”

Vance described the accusations found in the report as “crazy,” adding that they “demand investigation.”

“It’s on those of us in power to seek justice for those who were harmed by these doctors,” the vice president said. “People got rich, not by actually doing what is good for the patient, but by actually mutilating these kids. It was disgraceful.”

Pedro Rodriguez | Journalism Fellow

Pedro Boccalato Rodriguez-Aparicio is a journalism fellow at the Daily Signal.

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