When Kristina Rasmussen read a 2019 Wall Street Journal commentary about the rise of “woke” medical schools by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a former University of Pennsylvania Medical School professor, she was struck by the danger inherent in the trend. She knew that patients rely on highly trained doctors to heal injuries and cure illnesses and that future physicians needed to spend precious time in medical school learning advanced skills and techniques.
So, it was meant to be when Goldfarb eventually got in touch with Rasmussen and asked her to be executive director of a new organization called Do No Harm. The name Do No Harm, of course, comes from the Hippocratic Oath, which physicians traditionally vowed to uphold.
Do No Harm grew exponentially in its first year, bringing on a diverse group of staff and senior fellows to go out and do more than just talk about the challenges facing medicine. Goldfarb commented that joining forces was crucial to the success of Do No Harm. “Kristina Rasmussen is the engine of our organization,” he said. “She is unflappable, always of good cheer, and incredibly smart, energetic, and resourceful.”
“We’re first and foremost a group of doctors, nurses, medical students, and patients who are really concerned about where medicine is headed,” Rasmussen says. “The medical profession used to be focused on the idea of meritocracy, that the best and the brightest are trained and educated to look at patients as individuals, but the profession is moving into the world of identity politics—let’s lump people into categories and then start doing some questionable things.”
An Associated Press story in May hailed Do No Harm as “an influential new player on transgender health bills.” The AP report, which offered begrudging praise to the new group, noticed that new legislation regarding minors and transgender medical practices in several states bore distinct resemblances to Do No Harm’s model legislation.
According to its website, Do No Harm is “fighting to curtail the unscientific and individually harmful practice of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’” as it relates to minors. Chloe Cole, now eighteen, who regrets the puberty blockers and testosterone (begun at 13), and an irreversible double mastectomy she had when she was 15 years, is a senior fellow at Do No Harm.
When Chloe went to her parents and told them she thought she was a boy, “The gender clinic presented my parents with the classic false dichotomy: Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” Cole recalled in an interview.
According to Do No Harm, “‘Gender-affirming care’ is based on the dangerous premise that any child who has distress that he or she thinks is related to their sex should be treated with social transition to the sex of their choice followed by hormonal interventions and then possibly surgery to remove healthy body parts. Underlying mental health problems are often not addressed.”
“We’re first and foremost a group of doctors, nurses, medical students, and patients who are really concerned about where medicine is headed,” Rasmussen says.
“It would be wise to put age limits on these practices,” says Rasmussen, adding that no professional medical association in the U.S. has completed an up-to-date systematic review reflecting the growing body of new data about the long-term consequences of “gender-affirming” treatments on minors. “Furthermore, European countries are moving away from medical interventions on children. What are they figuring out that the U.S. is ignoring?” she noted.
In January 2023, Do No Harm published a groundbreaking study comparing how Europe and the U.S. approach “gender affirmation.” Northern and Western European countries, often considered to be highly tolerant societies, by and large, reject “gender-affirming” care for children. The study, titled “Reassigned,” found that the U.S. “is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children.”
“We’re seeing a tension right now between the various levels of government,” Rasmussen says. “The federal government under the Biden administration is all in for transgender procedures for kids, and they have a lot of control through the Department of Health and Human Services, which help decides what expenses Medicaid will cover, for example. Then there are a number of state governments, primarily blue states, which are also all in.
“But more red and purple states are saying, ‘No—we need to pause this and put age limits in place.’ But these states often end up being sued even though this is where the majority of the American public is at in their beliefs. There is a lot of disagreement but there’s a growing group of doctors who’ve had reservations for a long time and are now speaking out.”
The AP report, which offered begrudging praise to Do No Harm, noticed that new legislation regarding minors and transgender medical practices in several states bore distinct resemblances to the nonprofit’s model legislation.
While protecting minors from gender ideology is a huge part of what Do No Harm does, it is by no means the only concern. “We draw attention to the radical ideology of ‘anti-racism’ in healthcare,” the organization notes. “It is increasingly embedded within medical education and training, medical research, medical practice, and medical public policy, and it’s promoting divisive and discriminatory ideas. This reality is not well-known, so we shine a light on the scale of the problem and offer concrete solutions to fix it.”
The anti-racism agenda permeating much of the field of medical education puts a premium on the race of future doctors rather than their talent and skills. Medical education, Goldfarb wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, will increasingly focus on such matters as climate change, bias, and inequality rather than on treating illnesses. “If this country needs more gun control and climate change activists, medical schools are not the right place to produce them,” Goldfarb wrote.
Do No Harm is supporting litigation against Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-Lasure. They sued federal officials for imposing a CMS and HHS rule that sets up a system whereby doctors who adopt an “anti-racism” plan will make more money. Several states have joined the lawsuit.
“This is another example of a discriminatory and illegal policy advocated by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi being imposed on our health care system,” Dr. Goldfarb said in a statement. “These ‘anti-racism plans’ erode trust in medical professionals and will undermine the health and wellbeing of all patients.”
Do No Harm’s groundbreaking study comparing how Europe and the U.S. approach “gender affirmation,” titled “Reassigned,” found that the U.S. “is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children.”
Kristina grew up in Minnesota, the daughter of an automobile machinist and a mother who was a licensed daycare provider. Both parents went back to school when Kristina was in grade school. “I learned a lot from them about work ethic, and striving, and education, and opportunity.” She graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, with a degree in political science, and went on to earn a Master of Arts in Political Management from The George Washington University.
She got her professional start advocating for taxpayers before the federal government, and she also served as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Illinois Policy Institute.
Kristina lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband Henrik, who came to the United States to attend Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and is a proud immigrant to America. Henrik also works in the nonprofit field. Despite her demanding professional life, Kristina has an avocation: creating wedding and baby quilts as gifts for friends. With disarming humility, she dismisses it as “just painting by numbers with fabric.”After a career spent in liberty groups, what led her to embrace Do No Harm? “First and foremost, I’m a mom,” she replies. “With kids, you see all the phases of their growing up. Part of growing up is entering adolescence, which can be a tough time for any kid. And if a kid is going through a difficult time, and is bombarded with messages that maybe they were born in the wrong body and they should take dramatic, irreversible steps, that’s concerning to me. I have a policy background, but I want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for not just my kids but for kids across the country.”