HHS refers six children's hospitals to the OIG; institutional responses diverge within days

HHS General Counsel Mike Stuart referred six children's hospitals in six states to the HHS Office of Inspector General for "allegedly failing to protect our children from sex-rejecting procedures," following earlier referrals of Seattle Children's, Children's Hospital Colorado and Children's Minnesota. The referrals produced immediate divergent institutional responses: Lurie Children's curtailed care within five days and NYU Langone terminated its youth program within roughly a month, while CHOP, Boston Children's, Nemours and Doernbecher did not announce comparable curtailments. HHS separately referred Johns Hopkins Medicine in early February 2026; Johns Hopkins publicly denied performing gender-affirming surgery on minors and said it had received no formal notice of investigation.