'It is abusive': Iowa AG rips leading pediatric group for not 'following the science' for trans youth

EXCLUSIVE: Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is doubling down on her calls for the country's leading pediatric association to update its guidelines for transgender youth to include warnings about the risks of puberty blockers and other hormone treatments.

Bird said the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) "is involved in children's healthcare in Iowa and all around the country, and we want them to update their policies right now." 

"They say that puberty blockers are safe for kids and that it's reversible, and the science doesn't support that it's irreversible and causes permanent changes to children should they change their mind later," Bird, who joined a letter signed by 20 state attorneys general this week to the AAP, said. 

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On Tuesday, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador sent a letter Tuesday to the AAP accusing the organization of abandoning "its commitment to sound medical judgment." Bird, along with AGs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah, as well as the president of the Arizona Senate and the speaker of the Arizona state House of Representatives, signed the letter. 

"That halt on what is fairly described as medical experimentation on children is long overdue – particularly since the majority of children initially diagnosed with gender dysphoria desist and 'grow out' of the condition by the time they are adolescents or adults," the letter reads. "It is abusive to treat a child with biologically altering drugs that have an unknown physiological trajectory and end point. It is also inhumane to endorse such experimentation without a confident safety profile, especially if more times than not, it proves to be medically unnecessary."

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As procedures for transgender youth have become a hot button issue in the culture wars, it's an issue that former President Trump has vowed to address by restricting the accessibility of procedures to minors. Meanwhile, VP Kamala Harris' stance is unclear, but the Biden-Harris administration backtracked earlier this year and said it supports overturning bans on sex change surgeries for children.

According to unsealed documents published over the summer, health officials in the Biden administration successfully pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to omit the age limit in its guidelines for transgender surgical procedures for adolescents. 

"I think there's a clear difference between the candidates," Bird said. "And here is just another example of Vice President Harris blindly following the liberal, progressive party line. And here, President Trump has the science, he has the facts and is supportive of the science here."

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Last year, the AAP recommitted its pledge to support "gender-affirming care" and expanded its guidelines for pediatricians to "ensure young people get the reproductive and gender-affirming care they need and are seen, heard and valued as they are," AAP CEO Mark Del Monte said at the time.

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AAP has published several reports on reaffirming transgender youth in their preferred gender identities. In January, the AAP published a report titled, "Prohibition of Gender-Affirming Care as a Form of Child Maltreatment: Reframing the Discussion," which claimed that many bills aimed at restricting transgender treatments for children lead to poor mental health. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to AAP for comment.