American College of Pediatricians

This article is about the politically conservative advocacy group. For the major professional association of pediatricians, see American Academy of Pediatrics.

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a socially conservative association of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals specializing in the care of infants, children and adolescents in the United States. The College was founded in 2002 by a group of pediatricians including Joseph Zanga, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), as a protest against the AAP's support for adoption by gay couples. The ACPeds website reports members in 47 states of the United States and five other countries, but does not disclose the total member count. The group's membership has been estimated at between 60 and 200 members.

Zanga has described ACP as a group "with Judeo-Christian, traditional values that is open to pediatric medical professionals of all religions who hold true to the group's core beliefs: that life begins at conception; and that the traditional family unit, headed by a different-sex couple, poses far fewer risk factors in the adoption and raising of children." The organization's view on parenting is at odds with the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical and child welfare authorities, which hold that sexual orientation has no correlation with the ability to be a good parent and to raise healthy and well-adjusted children. A number of prominent researchers have complained that ACPeds mischaracterized or misused their work to advance its agenda.

Positions

The positions taken by the American College of Pediatricians are socially conservative. The organization advocates:

• Prohibition of adoption by same-sex couples;
• Limiting children's exposure to electronic media, particularly in relation to explicit violent and sexual content;
• Parental choice as to when and whether a child receives the HPV vaccine. ACPeds opposes legislation requiring HPV vaccination;
• Opposition to marijuana legalization;
• Support for selective parental use of corporal punishment in child discipline;
• Opposition to abortion;
• Support for abstinence-based sex education

The American College of Pediatricians argues that mainstream health organizations have taken public positions based on their own social and political views, rather than the available science.

Reactions

PFLAG identifies the American College of Pediatricians as an anti-equality organization, describing the group as a "small splinter group of medical professionals who do not support the mainstream view of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) that homosexuality is a normal aspect of human diversity." Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times, described ACPeds as a "political organization peddling homophobic junk-science." In an amicus brief, the National Association of Social Workers described ACPeds as a "small and marginal group" which was "out of step with the research-based position of the AAP and other medical and child welfare authorities."

Gary Remafedi, a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota, found his research being cited by ACPeds to argue that schools should deny support to gay teenagers. Remafedi complained that ACPeds had fundamentally mischaracterized his work, saying: "It's obvious that they didn't even read my research. I mean, they spelled my name wrong every time they cited it." Remafedi complained to ACPeds that his work was being misrepresented, but the organization refused to correct or retract its assertions, leading Remafedi to state that ACPeds had "deliberately distorted my research for malicious purposes."

Responding to claims by ACPeds that same-sex attraction could be "cured", Francis Collins, a renowned geneticist and director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, called ACPeds' use of his work "misleading and incorrect." Collins expanded on his complaint by issuing a statement:

It is disturbing for me to see special interest groups distort my scientific observations to make a point against homosexuality. The American College of Pediatricians pulled language out of context from a book I wrote in 2006 to support an ideology that can cause unnecessary anguish and encourage prejudice. The information they present is misleading and incorrect, and it is particularly troubling that they are distributing it in a way that will confuse school children and their parents.

Warren Throckmorton, an expert on sexual orientation, similarly complained that his research had been misused, saying of ACPeds: "They say they're impartial and not motivated by political or religious concerns, but if you look at who they're affiliated with and how they're using the research, that's just obviously not true."

Facts About Youth controversy

In response to the publication by AAP of Just the Facts, a handbook on teen sexual orientation aimed at a school audience, ACPeds published its own Facts About Youth in March 2010, accompanied by a web site. Facts About Youth, along with a cover letter, was mailed to 14,800 school superintendents on behalf of Tom Benton, president of ACPeds. Facts About Youth was challenged as not acknowledging the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The ACPeds letter to the superintendents primarily addressed same-sex attraction, and recommended that “well-intentioned but misinformed school personnel” who encourage students to “come out as gay” and affirm them as such may lead the students into “harmful homosexual behaviors that they otherwise would not pursue.” The ACPeds letter to the superintendents also stated that gender identity disorder will typically disappear by puberty “if the behavior is not reinforced.”

Several researchers complained that Facts About Youth misrepresented their findings. Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, made the following statement regarding the American College of Pediatricians on April 15, 2010: "It is disturbing for me to see special interest groups distort my scientific observations to make a point against homosexuality. The American College of Pediatricians pulled language out of context from a book I wrote in 2006 to support an ideology that can cause unnecessary anguish and encourage prejudice. The information they present is misleading and incorrect, and it is particularly troubling that they are distributing it in a way that will confuse school children and their parents." Other researchers who found that Facts About Youth misrepresented their work include Warren Throckmorton and Gary Remafedi.

External links

• Official website