A Texas surgeon said he is "terrified" that he could face up to a decade in prison but said the legal fight was worth it after he exposed that the nation's largest children's hospital was allegedly secretly conducting transgender treatments on minors.
"Standing in that courtroom and hearing those words, ‘facing up to 10 years in federal prison,’ is terrifying," Dr. Eithan Haim told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday. "You think about everything I could miss, my family, the birth of my first daughter, the first few years of her life. But there's something greater to fear, and that's the fear of not doing something."
Haim, a surgeon who completed his residency at the Texas Children's Hospital, was indicted on four felony charges stemming from leaking documents to journalist Christopher Rufo in May 2023. The documents allegedly show that the hospital continued operating its child gender clinic for the next year after it claimed it had been shut down.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas accused Haim of attempting to re-activate his login credentials under false pretenses after they expired due to lack of activity. The indictment alleges that Haim "obtained unauthorized individually identifiable health HIPAA protected information on pediatric patients" and "caused malicious harm to TCH, pediatric patients at TCH and its physicians by contacting a media contact."
Rufo previously said none of the documents he obtained from Haim included patients' personal information at the clinic. However, the indictment said the Texas Children's Hospital was harmed by the doctor’s actions.
Haim pled not guilty on Monday and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. His attorney says his case shows the government going out of its way to prosecute a whistleblower.
Ingraham said the indictment accused Haim of logging in to a doctor's files to access confidential patient information without authorization, which Haim denied.
Haim said the charges were part of a "political prosecution" against whistleblowers exposing transgender treatments at children's hospitals.
"What kind of world is that going to be if we don’t stand up?" he told Fox News on Tuesday. "We need to win because, if we lose, the door closes permanently on whistleblowers in the healthcare system."
In May 2022, Texas Children's Hospital announced it had stopped providing transgender therapies for minors after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-affirming care for kids as abuse.
However, Haim said in his whistleblowing documents that three days after the announcement, a surgeon implanted a hormone device in an 11-year-old girl who was experiencing gender dysphoria. He said that over the next year, the frequency of these procedures increased.
In June 2023, Texas lawmakers passed a law that banned transgender medical interventions on minors.
Texas Children's Hospital and the DOJ did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News' Brian Flood, Nate Foy, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
