News commentary on the Cass Report

😃

Just went to archive that one for posterity (because it’s gonna age like milk) and was pleased to see someone else had already archived it.

’Gemma Stone’ has a thread on the farms, btw.

I don't think they'd accept any kind of evidence.

And the CBC is happy to lie outright to maintain a narrative.

Journalist Jesse Singal tweeting about the CBC article regarding the Cass Review:

twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1779893479667081340

1/ The Cass Review explains, in detail, why we need to trust systematic reviews over both doctors' anecdotal evidence and low-quality standards published by professional associations. The CBC responds by publishing an article that cites professional associations and is dominated by doctors' anecdotal accounts.

2/ This might be the worst bit:
"Surveys and interviews are considered low-quality evidence in medicine, said [Pediatrician Dr. Tehseen Ladha], but that might be misleading to the general public. 'Many people would see low-quality evidence and think well, that means this could harm our children. But that's not what it means.' "

That's... exactly what low-quality evidence for a major intervention means. It means we don't know if the intervention offers a net benefit, because the true effects might differ significantly from what the studies in question present.

3/ Stuff like this isn't just the normal incompetence and sloppiness that plagues this subject. It is critically dangerous science miscommunication disseminated by the most important outlet in Canada. It's absolutely inexcusable and has to stop.

4/ Just wanna be clear about this: Let's say "low-quality" studies seem to tell us that an intervention improves things .5 points on a 10-point scale for patients. Doesn't matter what you're measuring. What that means, to oversimplify, is that we don't have confidence the intervention in question will actually have that effect on people. It could be higher, but it could be lower, changing the direction of the sign entirely.

I'd argue more structural forces within science publishing nudge us toward overstating rather than understating benefits, but whether or not you agree, the idea of this intervention being harmful is absolutely on the table in this sort of situation. The CBC is spreading rank BS here -- it's so, so bad. I don't understand how this keeps happening.

Cass review being debated in parliament today (3hours in on YTvideo) Dawn Butler making a t*t of herself even her fellow MP is shaking her head in disbelief at her stupidity
https://www.youtube.com/live/8Rr0wl-3on8?si=8KJi4vQPTUrVunlz

Follow the money and the wrecked career and legal liabilities if the Cass Review is correct.

There is no incentive for any North American doctor currently practising gender affirming care to acknowledge the legitmacy of the Cass Review.

Of course many will double down.

This PROVES the Cass Review IS having affect outside the UK. Think about their medicial practice insurance for starters. Do you think this is going to stay low in the wake of Cass?? Insurers aren't daft. They will take Cass seriously, even if gender affirming doctors don't.

If they didn't think it was significant, why the desparation to discredit the Cass Report?

They are scared they are about to be found out. They are scared people are going to start sueing. They are scared the house built on sand is about to collaspe.

Equally there will always be some people who would never be able to change their mind on certain issues even if given a Golden Bridge because this is their Hill To Die On.

So you look to who are the 'soft' believers and give them Golden Bridges and identify the 'hard' believers who continue to do harm and act accordingly.

Some people won't give themselves the reason to row back because they have such high sunk costs invested and its too much to believe the truth. Parents who trans their kids would have to believe they may have harmed their kids. Teachers who signposted to Mermaids would have to believe they'd failed to safeguard. Doctors who prescribed drugs would have to believe that they'd done unethical medical experimentation. CEOs of Certain Charities would have to believe that they weren't personally selected by God to carry out a righteous crusade. They can't allow themselves mentally that they were that responsible so they will deny it until they end. All perhaps truly believe they were acting with good faith, but it doesn't stop the reality that they took part in the harm of children. Psychologically its too much.

Thats where the law ultimately comes in. To stop get them to take responsibly and to stop them from doing futher harms.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that the discussion in Canada isn't one sided?

Are we talking about the same Canada?

You're not talking about, I don't know, a city named Canada in a non insane country?

It's the basis of golden bridges, you should never trap an enemy with no way out because it means they'll double down and fight to the death.

It's also a tenet of social psychology. When a belief or ideology starts to fail, people ratchet up their devotion.

Cialdini:

The power of belief is illustrated by the participant-observer research carried out by Festinger, Riecken and Schachter into a doomsday cult known as the Guardians, and documented in their 1956 book When Prophecy Fails. After their prediction that a flood would inundate the world and they would be carried away by spaceships did not transpire, cult members exhibited increased fervor in their beliefs. So invested were they in their beliefs that they could not risk giving them up: "The group members had gone too far, given up too much for their beliefs to see them destroyed; the shame, the economic cost, the mockery would be too great to bear" (127). In Freudian terms, their defensive behavior protected them from recognizing an unbearable truth. Cialdini explains that the moment the physical proof contradicted their beliefs, the cult members turned to the only other proof that would save them: social proof--they turned from "secretive conspirators to zealous missionaries" in an attempt to gain other converts, even though their beliefs had been shown to be baseless. "The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct" (128). Without saying so directly, Cialdini's example of religious social proof could be considered an allegory for all the examples of millennial belief down through the ages of human civilization.

https://www.media-studies.ca/articles/influence_ch4.htm

Isn't there a quote somewhere about fanatics doubling down when they get twinges of doubt?

novaramedia.com/2024/04/15/spare-a-thought-for-hilary-cass/

Spare a Thought for Hilary Cass
Few have dared to fail so publicly.
by Gemma Stonee*

lol. Norovirus media doing what they do best and being completely out of touch.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom

@LoobiJee

@RethinkingLife

I'm not advocating for the Canadian point of view. I'm posting the comment here because the discussion here isn't as utterly one-sided as it is everywhere else I can think of. My interest is that I have one (possibly) non-binary DD and an autistic DD. I think I've managed to steer them through all this but I don't feel in the clear yet.

The way the report is received overseas will probably affect its durability in the UK too.

Surely anyone who is acting in good faith will want to know that the evidence of benefit to GNC kids in taking PBs or hormones is there to outweigh the harms. If GI adherents are right and it is beneficial , then presumably the (withheld but soon to be released) adults who were treated as kids data will show this. Cass is saying “evidence first before radical treatments” - how can this be wrong?

I'm not sure I'd put much value on what Canadians are saying, given that that's where a nurse is potentially facing being struck off for saying that she believes in the reality of biological sex.

They're completely crackers over there.

So what you are saying is that people who have been putting children on harmful drug regimes as a way of boosting their bank accounts, and are at risk of litigation as a result, are trying to discredit the review, in order to save their own skin/ their commercial enterprise / their bank balance…..

A quick look at Ladha's CV doesn't begin to match Cass' experience as a paediatrician etc.

Did Ladha mean Risk of BIas as in the tool that is used to evaluate clinical studies or is Ladha delivering ad hominems and using the vernacular sense of bias without giving an example?

ETA: rejection on what grounds?

These people, as is common in North America, are likely to view medicine as a social justice endeavour and not something that should be based on scientific evidence - I think that they’re ignoring the fact the Cass review was conducted in keeping with recognised international best practice standards for carrying out systematic reviews of evidence.

Here’s an easily digestible breakdown for the layperson:

https://www.quackometer.net/blog/2024/04/breaking-down-cass-review-myths-and-misconceptions-what-you-need-to-know.html

edited to add this link to the BMJ as well:

https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q837

That's a very clear rejection of the Cass Review, and not by randoms either.

"[Dr Tehseen] Ladha [paediatrician and assistant professor at the University of Edmonton] wondered if the review was "coming from a place of bias."

It's well worth paying attention to what specialists overseas are saying.

“This scandal happened because too many adults put their desire for social approval above the welfare of children" - Bloody well said Miriam Cates MP”

This.

Dennis Noel Kavanagh AT Jebadoo2
Tonia Antioanazzi MP calmly and clearly laments the lack of data in this area, the chilling effect of ideology and calls for cross party working together on the issue of gender. Bloody well said Tonia.

Secretary of State playing a blinder here, all over the Cas review and on top of her brief. Impressive and game changing moment. Gender ideology is now under heavy, sustained and cross party attack.

I don't wanna be "that guy", but could we please have a lesbian or gay male MP speak to this issue now please.

NOTE THE BOLD.

Dennis Noel Kavanagh AT Jebadoo2
Rosie Duffield now, begins by quoting Hannah Barnes and citing extreme activists, some in political parties. Slams Stonewall law.

"This is the moment for apologies and humility" says Secretary of State of campaign of harassment against Rosie Duffield.

"What happens at GIDS will go down as one of the worst medical and safeguarding scandals of our generation" says Miriam Cates MP

"This scandal happened because too many adults put their desire for social approval above the welfare of children" - Bloody well said Miriam Cates MP

Can I beg any MP in the chamber now please, please, please mention the institutional homophobia of GIDS. This was mainly young lesbians medicalised and staff joked "soon there will be no gay people left". This should be said.

Dawn Butler MP repeats misinformation regarding 100 studies not being including in the Cass report. This is a lie and attracting derision in the chamber.

Secretary of State responds robustly to misinformation from Dawn Butler MP "Some campaigners are trying to build up a head of steam to say this report is flawed, it is not"

Sammy Wilson MP condemns the "vile campaigns" against those raising questions over the Tavistock and calls for the purging of the "transgender lobby" from gender medicine.

Hannah Barnes AT hannahsbee
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins making a statement on Cass Review on gender identity services for children says: "professionals were not asking the right questions of themselves or of their patients"

Praises Hilary Cass and her team, who have "meticulously unpicked what went wrong, what the evidence actually shows, and how to design a fundamentally different service that better serves the needs of children."

Atkins also thanks "those who raised the alarm and contributed to the review". This includes, "the clinicians who spoke up against their peers to blow the whistle about what was happening at the Tavistock clinic, even though it risked their careers"…

…the journalists, academics and activists who listened to their stories and investigated further, even when they were derided as bigots and transphobes"...

"...the parents who were just trying their best to support their children, but were so badly let down by a service that vilified them for questioning whether the interventions offered were the right ones for their children…"

and "the young people themselves who have shared their experiences, including those who have gone through the pain of de-transitioning, only to find that the so-called ‘reversible’ treatments they were offered are not in fact reversible."

Health Sec say NHS "was overtaken by a culture of secrecy and ideology that was allowed to trump evidence and safety."

Warning for private providers, operating both overseas and in the UK: "Nothing is off the table" when it comes to closing any existing loopholes... and CQC asked to look again at 'age thresholds' for licensing conditions of private clinics

Shadow Health Sec Wes Streeting thanks Cass for 'thoughtful' way she has undertaken her work too

Oh - and a rather surprising name-check for me and other journalists who have followed this story...

"What has emerged in the Cass Review is a scandal... it is scandalous that medical interventions have been made on the basis of shaky evidence...perhaps the worst scandal of all is the toxicity...& that it has required investigative journalism to prompt this review taking place"

This report, Streeting says, must provide a watershed moment for children's health care and 'for the way our society and out politics discuss this issue.'

Even in an election year, this should be the one issue where MPs should "down tools and work togther". Tribute paid to Sajid Javid for commissioning the Cass Review and says politicians should "put children's health and well being above political debate"

Dennis Noel Kavanagh AT Jebadoo2
Streeting "the loophole for private providers of puberty blockers is sparking a black market, can I underline our support for further regulation"

"The ideology he and his colleagues espoused was part of the problem" - stinging response from sitting Secretary of State for health to her shadow as she calls for accountability for Labour's part in promoting gender ideology.

Jackie Doyle Price MP rightly pointing out that whatever politics the sitting and shadow secretary of state have across the dispatch boxes, this happened under a conservative government. She's right and it's a mark of how good she is a parliamentarian to say this as a Tory MP

Disgraceful now to hear SNP spokeswoman (last seen pictured at a protest with a sign saying "decapitate terfs") pointedly not commit the SNP devolved government to supporting Cass. Then the hide to bang on about conversion despite Cass pointing out such legislation is homophobic.

Secretary of State not having this, rightly, says the SNP devolved government and the Labour one in Wales should respond to Cass.

This is a great debate on the Secretary of State for Health's post Cass statement but I guess I'm going to have to wait for JCKC, Neale Hanvey or Rosie Duffield to mention homophobia. This was a homophobic medical scandal. Gay people must not be erased in all this.

Dr Caroline Johnson MP rightly calls for accountability for the adult services who refused to cooperate with Dr Cass. She's right to do so, we need accountability on the NHS defying elected ministers and they must not get away with this.

Secretary of State robustly says she expects compliance with Cass and calls out ideological malpractice. Makes clear ideology has no place in the NHS. Open warfare now on gender ideology. Finally.

Dennis Noel Kavanagh has made a few tweets on this now. There are others live tweeting the debate.

Joanna Cherry KC AT joannacherry
There are MPs from all parties who welcome the #CassReport & who want to make sure its recommendations are implemented & those responsible for the institutional capture & bullying are held to account. Statement coming up in the House of Commons about 530pm.

Has this happened yet??

Completely me on another thread right now! When I've time I'm starting one about the rabbit hole I didn't know I was going down today.

Coverage from CBC in Canada - Canadian gender affirming clinicians in this report are not backing down on there being no problem in giving puberty blocking drugs to children:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/puberty-blockers-review-1.7172920