Do No Harm

Do No Harm is a United States medical and political advocacy group that opposes gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medicine and medical education. The group assists state legislatures in attempts to ban gender-affirming care for youth. It argues that efforts to recruit a more diverse group of medical practitioners will result in lower standards of care, and that diversity training within the health care system places politics ahead of care. History The group was founded in 2022 by Stanley Goldfarb, a retired kidney specialist and former associate dean of curriculum at University of Pennsylvania Medical School and Joseph Edelman, a hedge fund manager. The group's initial focus was opposing anti-racism in healthcare education and hiring. In January of 2023 they announced they were adding an initiative to "protect minors from gender ideology". Mission The group was formed to "[protect] patients and physicians from woke healthcare", according to an April 2022 press release. Gender-affirming care According to the Associated Press, the group by 2023 had "evolved into a significant leader in statehouses seeking to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths". It developed a model legislation state legislatures could introduce to ban such care; by May of 2023 the model legislation had been introduced in Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, and West Virginia.