In June 2024, Texas Children's Hospital nurse Vanessa Sivadge gave an interview to Christopher Rufo, blowing the whistle on the hospital performing "gender affirming" child mutilation surgeries after Texas law prohibited such procedures. Sivadge named names, too, alleging that the doctors performing the procedures, Richard Ogden Roberts, David Paul, and Kristy Rialon, might be manipulating patients into mutilating themselves.
Shortly after that interview, two FBI agents showed up at Sivadge's door. Those agents, Sivadge said, threatened her. "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."
Turned out the FBI, the hospital, and federal prosecutors under the Biden administration were all working to get revenge against Sivadge and Dr. Eithan Haim, the whistleblower who faced prosecution for blowing the whistle on Texas Children's Hospital. Haim was charged with four counts of wrongfully obtaining individually identifiable health information by the Biden DOJ and he faced 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The revenge case against Haim was dropped by the Trump administration.
Now, Sivadge has reached a landmark settlement with Texas Children's Hospital.
Burke Law Group Secures Landmark False Claims Act Settlement and Sets National Precedent // @V_Sivadge is a hero and has been fully vindicated. https://t.co/6M2t4dPT70
— BLG Tweets (@BurkeLawTweets) August 5, 2026
Burke Law Group, PLLC announced today that it secured a historic and unprecedented settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital (“Texas Children’s”) that sets the bar for enforcement actions against hospitals that provide sex-rejecting “gender transition” procedures to minors. The settlement resolves alleged violations of the federal False Claims Act, the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act, the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws on behalf of nurse-whistleblower Vanessa Sivadge.
...
The case, Sivadge v. Texas Children’s Hospital, et al., Case No. 4:24-cv-2018 (S.D. Tex.), alleged that Texas Children’s Hospital, Texas Children’s Health Plan, Inc., and physicians Dr. David L. Paul and Dr. Richard Ogden Roberts III knowingly submitted false claims to Medicaid by prescribing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and other gender-transition treatments to minors in violation of Texas Medicaid policies, and billing those prohibited services to federal and state healthcare programs using fraudulent diagnosis codes. The covered conduct period extends from as early as January 1, 2010 (January 1, 2016, as to the federal claims), through the effective date of the settlement. Under the settlement, three current physicians will have their privileges permanently and irrevocably terminated, and two former physicians are permanently barred from holding credentials or privileges at any Texas Children’s facility.
This settlement is the first of its kind in the nation and establishes a legal framework for pending DOJ settlements in other states. It goes beyond financial penalties, mandating that Texas Children’s must implement sweeping operational reforms.
Under the terms of the settlement, Texas Children's Hospital is required to pay $10 million in penalties; build and operate a free Detransition Clinic to provide "full-service care" to patients who underwent sex-rejecting procedures at any hospital or clinic in the nation; issue a written statement to the public about its practices and legal obligations going forward; permanently terminate and revoke the privileges of five physicians who carried out the procedures and never re-hire or credential them; implement operational reforms including training on the dangers of sex-rejecting treatments and procedures including whistleblower training; rewrite institutional by-laws so anyone performing those procedures loses clinical privileges, and commit to a permanent prohibition on sex-rejecting services at all facilities.
Sivadge took a victory lap over this remarkable settlement.
If I could go back in time and speak to the terrified, insecure girl who walked out of Texas Children’s Hospital with a box of her belongings, I would say this:
— Vanessa Sivadge (@V_Sivadge) August 5, 2026
Your whistleblower case will one day result in America’s First Detransitioner Clinic.
That sentence still doesn’t… https://t.co/EmxJKoVwDn
"Your whistleblower case will one day result in America’s First Detransitioner Clinic," Sivadge wrote. "That sentence still doesn’t seem real. But now-2 years later, I can finally share EVERYTHING I couldn’t speak about till now. It’s over. I won. To God be the Glory."
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