Missouri
Credibility of state’s expert witnesses questioned in Missouri transgender health care trial • Missouri Independent
Missouri’s defense of a state law barring minors from beginning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will depend on whether the judge in the case puts stock in expert witnesses touting retracted studies and conspiracy theories about Jerry Sandusky.
Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, who is presiding over a lawsuit challenging Missouri’s gender-affirming care restrictions, will have to weigh the credibility of expert witnesses alongside his judgment.
Questions of credibility came up Tuesday, when the Missouri Attorney General’s Office called as a witness John Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern who testified about his now-retracted study entitled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” which concludes that adolescents identify as transgender as a result of social contagion.
But it was his social media post about the accusers of Jerry Sandusky that appeared to concern Carter.
Sandusky, a former college football coach, was convicted of molesting young boys over a period of at least 15 years. Bailey repeatedly posted on social media that he believes Sandusky is innocent.
“You believe the people testifying against Jerry Sandusky are lying?” Carter asked.
“I can see that if you are not familiar with the evidence that I am familiar with, you would be shocked,” Bailey told him.
“Mmhmm,” Carter replied.
Bailey said he had listened to a podcast and lauded the work of conservative commentator John Ziegler.
“Do you know (Ziegler)? Have you talked to anybody that was an eyewitness in that case?” Carter asked.
“I have read testimony, but I have not talked to anyone,” Bailey said.
Although the underlying case was not about Sandusky, the exchange may have chiseled away at Bailey’s credibility and showed a greater pattern of basing conclusions on secondary sources.
Bailey’s research on transgender youth has been retracted, which he chalked up to pressure from activists.
The academic journal that retracted his article cited an issue with informed consent protocol, meaning participants didn’t know their responses would be in an article. On cross-examination, the circumstances of his research became clearer.
To investigate his hypothesis of whether “rapid onset gender dysphoria” caused a rise in referrals to gender clinics, Bailey surveyed parents and guardians who interacted with the website ParentsofROGDKids.com, a website for parents who believe their child has rapid onset gender dysphoria.
He said the study’s co-author Suzanna Diaz isn’t a researcher, so she didn’t create the survey with typical informed-consent procedures. He didn’t explain that Diaz is a pseudonym.
He knew Diaz was associated with ParentsofROGDKids.com but didn’t know her real name and if she ran the website.
Diaz had created the questionnaire to “weed out troublemakers.”
When Bailey looked into detransitioners and desisters, which are people who have stopped or reversed gender-affirming care, he looked to the website Reddit and looked at groups titled “detrans” and “desist.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Nora Huppert asked if he verified that participants had previously been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Bailey admitted that he had not.
The other defense expert on the stand Tuesday was Dr. Daniel Weiss, an endocrinologist from Utah.
For 10 years in Ohio, Weiss accepted transgender adults as patients that needed cross-sex hormones, but later decided the intervention was harmful to prescribe.
“I’m opposed to it medically,” Weiss said of adults using cross-sex hormones to transition. “I think there’s no scientific evidence to support it. But if someone wants to do it, and they’re adequately informed, they can do it.”
His testimony included a look at adverse event reporting of puberty blockers, which he does not prescribe, and the discussion of risks to gender-affirming care.
When asked to compare the risks of puberty blockers to aspirin, he couldn’t make a direct comparison.
“It’s hard to compare,” he said. “With any intervention, you want to balance risk and benefit and look at all the treatment options.”
Gillian Wilcox, an attorney with the ACLU of Missouri, asked if he has published a peer-reviewed article on gender dysphoria. He hadn’t.
“My article, if I were to write one, would be rejected by most medical journals because there is no good treatment,” Weiss said. “I call it child-harming treatment. There is no good intervention.”
He has testified in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for minors. He told Wilcox that the Center for Christian Virtue, an advocacy group with anti-LGBTQ views, asked him to testify and he was paid to prepare his testimony.
He does not have clinical experience with minors.
In the state’s pretrial brief, Solicitor General Joshua Divine wrote that defendants will only need to prove “medical and scientific uncertainty” to show that state lawmakers are allowed to enact restrictions on gender-affirming care.
Although the state has entered the trial confident in the task ahead, credibility may limit what the judge will consider from its experts.
Other witnesses Tuesday included parents, one of which lives in Chicago, who disagreed with their children about their transition.
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Missouri
Missouri lottery player wins $3 million, jumpstarts retirement dream
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A Missouri resident plans to retire after stopping at a Clay County grocery store.
The winner purchased “$3 Million Supreme” scratchers ticket at the Price Chopper on Barry Road in Kansas City.
“I scratched the ticket before heading home,” the winner shared. “I knew I won, but the whole drive home I had a strange feeling something wasn’t right with that ticket.”
The winner thought he won $3,000 but after taking a closer look he realized he won $3 million.
ALSO READ: Andrew Lester’s attorney motions to prevent Ralph Yarl from being labeled ‘victim’
“I called my son and asked him if he was sitting down,” he said. “I’m pretty sure he fell out of his chair when I told him I won and I am finally retiring!”
Clay County residents have won more than $29.6 million in Missouri Lottery prizes in 2024.
Retailers received 43.1 millions and $10.1 has gone to education programs.
ALSO READ: 19-year-old who stole child’s backpack at gunpoint found, arrested in Missouri
Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.
Missouri
Missouri Immunization Coalition advises to stay ahead of RSV this winter (LISTEN) – Missourinet
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a common respiratory virus that can cause severe illness, especially in infants, older adults, and individuals with weakened immune systems.
Joining Show Me Today is Dr. Laura Morris with MU Heath, who is speaking on behalf of the Missouri Immunization Coalition to provide insight on the safety, effectiveness, and availability of RSV vaccines, particularly for high-risk groups like pregnant women, older adults, and young children.
Missouri
Missouri lawmaker wants to outlaw lethal weapons, require checkpoints at parades
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – When gunfire erupted just minutes after the Chiefs Super Bowl victory rally in February, many asked how it could happen with more than 800 law enforcement officers on hand in an effort to keep the event safe. It is something one local lawmaker wants to address when the Missouri General Assembly convenes next month.
State Representative Anthony Ealy, a Democrat from Grandview, was among the state and local leaders rushed to the basement of Union Station when the sound of shots punctuated the crowd.
Five days later, he introduced legislation to outlaw bringing readily lethal weapons to a parade and requiring parade sponsors to set up checkpoints for security screening. This session, he has pre-filed a new bill with the same language. He spoke to KCTV5 the day the original bill got its second reading.
“The fact that they were able to even have guns in their backpacks on their persons around hundreds of thousands of people it is just crazy and there has to be an answer to that,” Ealy said.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas ran when he heard the gunfire. He too wants a solution.
“It is an experience that many of us will not forget,” Lucas said. “I think it is important that we not just move on, but we continue to say, ‘How can we make our community safer?’”
The shooting injured at least two dozen people and killed Lisa Lopez-Galvan. Court documents associated with federal gun crimes charges a month later indicated that at least 12 people pulled out guns and six fired.
READ MORE: Three men charged in gun trafficking linked to mass shooting at Chiefs rally
House Bill No. 94 has two components. The criminal portion would add to what fits the crime of unlawful use of weapons.
It currently prohibits bringing a “firearm of any other weapon readily capable of lethal use” into a place of worship, an election precinct on election day, and any government building. The bill would add a “parade zone during parade hours” to restricted places.
That part, Lucas said, gives law enforcement a leg up.
“I particularly like the portion where it bans the carry of those types of weapons in those crowded areas,” he remarked. “I think that is something that could be helpful for all of us.”
The portion of the law that requires parade hosts to create secure checkpoints is one that Lucas concedes is impractical. It could be cost-prohibitive, and it’s logistically difficult to accomplish in such a large area.
The bill requires that people entering a parade zone pass through a metal detector or be “otherwise scanned by security officers to determine whether the person possesses a firearm.”
A checkpoint existed at the NFL Draft in Kansas City in 2023. They are standard at big stadium events and will no doubt be part of World Cup game security. But those are more confined spaces than a parade.
“When you fill up a good chunk of downtown Kansas City, that becomes something that’s harder to put up,” said Lucas. “I think there are a great many challenges relating to how you build a perimeter, how you set things up all around. But I am always willing to have a conversation about how we make our community safer.”
ALSO READ: Gov. Parson speaks on rally shooting; Rep. introduces legislation restricting firearms at parades in Missouri
The parade restrictions in the bill are limited events hosted by governmental entities. A parade zone is defined as the route and “any public area within one mile.”
The rally shooting was a source of physical and emotional trauma for so many who attended. But people sneak guns into places where it’s already illegal, which is why Lucas emphasized that there’s much more to a solution than checkpoints.
“I think for us long term, the real solution, is to figure it out how we get guns off the street, particularly crime guns, those that have been used in crimes again and again; how we make them harder to get for young people, including a lot of our youthful shooters who were involved in this incident,” Lucas said. “We don’t have to live this way.”
Missouri has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation. It no longer requires any training or permit to carry a concealed firearm. That went away in 2017.
KCTV5 reached out to Ealy to discuss HB94. He declined to make himself available, citing scheduling conflicts.
Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.
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