Endocrine Society Focuses on Transgender Care, Drug Pricing, EDCs and more at AMA HOD

The Endocrine Society sent a delegation, including members Amanda Bell and Shivani Agarwal, to participate in the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates (HOD) in November to establish policy positions on topics of importance to endocrinologists and the patients they treat.

We attend the AMA meetings to further our policy agenda by garnering the support of the House of Medicine, which bolsters our advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill and with federal agencies as an additional means of support. In addition to passing policy that supports our priorities, we also fight against resolutions that will be detrimental.

In November, the HOD considered a wide range of resolutions, from legalization of the Deferred Action for Legal Childhood Arrival to gender equity in medicine. We focused our attention on resolutions that dealt with transgender/gender identity, contraception, drug pricing, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and obesity. We spoke in support of a resolution advocating for electronic medical records to include the organs that a transgender patient has so physicians have the ability to order tests relevant to those organs rather than those associated with the gender recorded in the record (i.e., prostate exam for a transgender woman).

Another resolution on transgender health issues that we supported focused on the need for a comprehensive medical education curriculum on transgender health issues. We also spoke in support of resolutions on the need for more research on the impact of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) chemicals on human health and legislation and regulation seeking to address contamination, exposure, classification, and clean-up of PFAS substances. We are analyzing the impact of these new policies on our members and will work with the AMA to advance our mutual policy priorities.

We also worked closely with the delegates from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and American Association of Endocrine Surgeons during the meeting on issues of importance to endocrinologists.