FBI intimidated nurse who exposed hospital’s child mutilation practices, report reveals

A report published Tuesday revealed that the FBI sent agents to intimidate a nurse after she blew the whistle on child mutilation practices at Texas Children’s Hospital.

‘Manipulating’ children into mutilation

Vanessa Sivadge started working as a registered nurse in the cardiac unit at Texas Children’s Hospital in 2021. Soon she began to notice that children who came to the hospital to be treated for various psychological issues were being recommended for “gender-affirming care.” When kids showed up who were struggling with anxiety, depression, abuse, puberty discomfort, addiction, and suicide ideation, doctors diagnosed them with “gender dysphoria.” 

These children were then placed on sex-change regimens that included puberty blockers, breast-removal surgery, and implanted hormone devices. 

The next year, under pressure from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas Children’s Hospital CEO Mark Wallace announced the closure of the gender clinic. But the clinic quietly reopened days later, managed by Drs. Richard Roberts, David Paul, and Kristy Rialon.

Sivadge told journalist Christopher Rufo that doctors in the clinic were “manipulating” children into child mutilation and that those doctors ignored parental objections. Sivadge felt that the hospital would call Child Protective Services on parents who objected to these treatments.

“I work very closely with this provider, Dr. Richard Roberts. I’ve been in the room with him when he speaks with these patients,” Sivadge told Rufo. “Dr. Roberts is extremely encouraging of their transition and will essentially do whatever he can to make sure that they are happy, at least externally happy. Because I am absolutely certain that they are not internally happy. He is very accommodating. He does whatever they want. Essentially, there is no critical analysis of the process.”

The FBI pays a visit

Two months after she spoke to Rufo, two FBI agents appeared at Sivadge’s door unannounced. Agents Paul Nixon and David McBride told Sivadge they wanted to discuss “some of the things that have been going on at [her] work lately” and asked to enter her home.

They notified her that she was a “person of interest” in an investigation against a whistleblower who had exposed the child mutilation practices at Texas Children’s Hospital. The agents said that someone at work gave the FBI Sivadge’s name.

“They threatened me,” she said. “They promised they would make life difficult for me if I was trying to protect the leaker. They said I was ‘not safe’ at work and claimed that someone at my workplace had given my name to the FBI.”

Medicaid fraud

Texas law does not allow “gender-affirming care” to be covered by Medicaid. But after looking closely at the paperwork of some of the patients, Sivadge came to believe that the doctors were billing Medicaid for the sex-change treatments.

“The largest children’s hospital in the country is illegally billing Medicaid for transgender procedures,” she told Rufo. “It is evident that the hospital continues to believe it is above the law not just by concealing the existence of their transgender medicine program from the public, but by stealing from the federal government.”

Whistleblower surgeon indicted

Sivadge is not the first whistleblower to expose Texas Children’s Hospital’s activities. Rufo broke the first story about the hospital’s practices last year based on information from Dr. Eithan Haim, a surgeon who worked at Texas Children’s Hospital.

This week, Dr. Haim was indicted by the Department of Justice with four felony counts of obtaining personal medical information.