U.S. Senators Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) wrote Tuesday to Mandy Cohen, M.D., the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), demanding answers for the health agency’s recent guidance on transgender “chestfeeding,” a practice, the senators said, that poses health and safety risks for newborns.
The senators, both physicians, highlighted in the letter their “serious concern” regarding CDC’s “guidance for “biological men who identify as women (transgender individual) who wish to breastfeed.”
Noting that CDC’s “Pledge to the American People” states that “the basis of all public health decisions will be made on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively,” the doctor-lawmakers asserted, however, that those decisions seem to be “driven by political considerations rather than science, and the Agency has provided no explanation of the reasoning and data behind these recommendations.”
Marshall appeared on Newsmax recently to discuss the CDC’s guidance on “chestfeeding.”
The two senators wrote of their specific concerns with CDC’s guidance:
In at least two pages of CDC’s “Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies Toolkit” the Agency gives guidance related to transgender individuals breastfeeding. Specifically, CDC states that “Transgender and nonbinary-gendered individuals may give birth and breastfeed or feed at the chest (chestfeed).” CDC also responds to the question of “Can transgender parents who have had breast surgery breastfeed or chestfeed their infants?” with the one-word answer “Yes.” CDC further explains that these transgender parents may need help with “Medication to induce lactation,” among other concerns. What is explicitly left out is the acknowledgement of limited research on the ability of transgender individuals to breastfeed infants.
“CDC also does not provide any information about any unique health and safety risks posed to the transgender individual or the infant,” the lawmakers emphasized.
“While this lack of transparency is troubling, perhaps the most concerning aspect of the CDC guidance is where the Agency states that health care providers should help transgender individuals obtain ‘Medication to induce lactation,’” they continued. “As you know, there are currently no medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase the supply of breast milk. The two drugs most commonly used off-label for this purpose, metoclopramide and domperidone, are both intended for other conditions and come with significant risks and side effects.”
CDC’s social justice-inspired “guidance” states:
- Transgender and nonbinary-gendered individuals may give birth and breastfeed or feed at the chest (chestfeed). The gender identity or expression of transgender individuals is different from their sex at birth. The gender identity of nonbinary-gendered individuals does not fit neatly into either man or woman.
- An individual does not need to have given birth to breastfeed or chestfeed.
- Some families may have other preferred terminology for how they feed their babies, such as nursing, chestfeeding, or bodyfeeding.
Internationally-known physician Peter McCullough, M.D., wrote in his Substack column Courageous Discourse last week that CDC has become a “laughing stock” over its “chestfeeding” guidance, “plunging to new lows” with its “ridiculous” statement.
A pioneer in the development of early treatment protocols for COVID-19, McCullough asserted:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is imploding with turnover of two directors over the pandemic, admissions of “large mistakes” during the course of COVID-19, and a vaccine safety debacle that is the worst on record with CDC-favored but clinically ill-advised mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
“Now the agency is plunging to new lows with this ridiculous statement on their website,” he continued, citing CDC’s “chestfeeding” guidance.
“The CDC should only issue guidance that is informed by sound data and that informs people of potential health risks,” Marshall and Cassidy wrote to Cohen. “To issue breastfeeding guidance that does not highlight the clear risks posed to transgender women breastfeeding unnecessarily puts the parent and infant in jeopardy of potentially serious health complications.”
Stating that CDC “has already lost credibility amongst a wide swath of Americans due to the perception that the Agency’s guidance is driven by politics, rather than science,” the senators wrote that “issuing breastfeeding guidance that does not highlight the unique health risks to adults and infants that accompany breastfeeding by transgender individuals only continues to harm the Agency’s credibility.”
Marshall and Cassidy posed nine questions to Cohen regarding how CDC decided about the “chestfeeding” guidance, and requested a response by August 1.
Jason McDonald of the CDC Press Office told The Star News Network, “CDC has received the letter and will respond to the senators.”
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Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Background Photo “CDC Building” by Daniel Mayer. CC BY-SA 3.0.
