BMA to vote to 'disavow' the Cass review

Oh dear - sounds like they already know what they want to find!

The BMA has been critical of proposals to ban the prescribing of puberty blockers to children and young people with gender dysphoria, calling instead for more research to help form a solid evidence base for children’s care – not just in gender dysphoria but more widely in paediatric treatments. The Association believes clinicians, patients and families should make decisions about treatment on the best available evidence, not politicians

Two faced hypocrasy. The politician "decision" was based on the report.

In other words the BMA is saying Cass didn't listen to us, everyone else she listened to is rubbish.

So obviously the report is wrong.

They didn't even attempt to justify why puberty blocker should continue to be prescribed. ie if they had indicated some withdrawal system or something, anything.

They are just saying because we dont agree with the Cass Report recommendations it shouldn't be listened to.

Concerning to know this is the group who could influence any treatment I might have for totally other conditions. If they can behave like this about purberty blockers, who knows what else they think they are entitled to decided.

Unfortunately I suspect the Labour Party will leap on this.

'The BMA is calling for a pause'

This is exactly why I left the BMA. it isn't a Royal College, it's just a union but seems to think it should be making clinical policy.

Thank you.

How interesting that they refer to Yale university's response and not the responses from other country's health departments who have done similar reviews and supported the Cass finding, before the Cass report was finalised. Seems to be very highly selective considering the recent reviews from those other countries. One could say that the BMA has already declared their bias.

https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-to-undertake-an-evaluation-of-the-cass-review-on-gender-identity-services-for-children-and-young-people

They have put out a statement.

The cracks are showing.

They certainly are, just not the ones you think.

ButterflyHatched. Can you specify which parts you feel are flawed and why?

Given it has taken months for the mainstream media to reliably acknowledge that there might be any professional disagreement with elements of how the Cass review was conducted, it looks like a promising start toward a more neutral and open narrative. The cracks are showing.

This should be a time to rejoice in GC circles - the Cass review doesn't go nearly far enough to satisfy the stated agenda of the Big Names and will in time become quite a shackle unless it is discredited.

I was listening to an episode of This Jungian Life podcast about malignant narcissism earlier (like you do) They mentioned a meme attributed to a Kurt Vonnegut essay. This is the relevant section of the transcript:

…”And we can easily be agitated. You know, I saw something, I saw a meme on social media.

I have no idea. I haven't verified it. I should have verified it before I started recording this morning.

But apparently Kurt Vonnegut said, and I don't know if this is true, but it's still a great metaphor. If you put brown ants and red ants in a jar, they won't kill each other. But if you shake the jar, they will begin to kill each other.

And the red ants will think of the black ants as their enemy and vice versa. So the question is, who's shaking the jar?

That's a powerful metaphor.”

Source:
From This Jungian Life Podcast: MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS: they're closer than you think, 13 Jun 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/this-jungian-life-podcast/id1376929139?i=1000658855160

Who is shaking the jar on gender?

Exactly.
If one steps back nd looks at the medias influence, they have got us into trouble time and again.
Trump wouldnt have got in without the Tsunami of free press he got in 2016
and so little digging.

Brexit would never have happened if Farage wasnt given a semi permanent platform on the Beeb.

And Tra wouldnt have happened if there had been any serious reporting into it.

Whilst it’s (probably) good that the reported motion was amended/not voted on, that BBC piece means that some people will think the Cass report is more controversial in medical circles than it is. Although the BMA are mainly in the news because of strikes not everyone realises that they are a union rather than a collection of senior medical experts.

I think a whistleblower went to Hannah Barnes to expose the vote on the intended motion. The fact the BMA said that the wording wasn't the one debated suggests it was amended or watered down in an attempt to get it to pass. In the event they have kicked it all into the long grass. I'm treating this as a win as they backed off when exposed to ridicule. These activists are not getting it all their way.

Ahh, yes, I see what you are saying. I expect that the fact this was put into the public domain did cause the BMA to pull it from being discussed. Like you, I imagine that was the point of leaking it.
Thank goodness for the adults there who still seem to value evidence based medicine enough to call this kind of ideological activism out.

Thanks.

But did it ever get on the agenda?

All I'm saying it is just possible that there are enough GC people in various places who are able to pre-empt an attempt like this via leaks etc..

This is good because in the past where organisations have been captured, nobody would dare do this.
.

The original HB article says it wasn't presented at the ARM meeting, but it seems this is the only place BMA policy is made.

The RB (Representative body), which consists of delegates from all BMA divisions and branches of practice, regional and national councils, meets each year at ARM to form BMA's policy.
When a motion is passed at ARM, it is handed to the appropriate body for implementation and it ultimately becomes BMA policy.

So why was a policy item put forward at a meeting that couldn't make policy?

Just to repeat, i am really glad this has become public, but have found it confusing.

What would be good is if it makes the BMA think again about over promoting someone, and that Runswick is asked to stand down from the Board.

I am sure they could find a younger member of the BMA who is actually committed to making medical provision better both for providers and patients, and doesn't have a personal agenda they think should be everybody's priority.

For those without access to X, she posted the following:
"The BMA have said: "The motions discussed were not as reported". I was not in today's Council meeting . It may well have been that the motion was amended during discussions. But the motion sent to members was as reported. BMA did not deny this when approached by me yesterday."

Hannah Barnes, the journalist who originally drew attention to this story with an article in the Spectator, has shared the wording of the motion as it was sent to members (one if whom then passed it to her) on X. Link here.

Wes Streeting is getting around the table with the BMA on Tuesday to thrash out doctors' pay. I imagine the BMA could do without the accompanying ridicule passing the nonsense motion would have heaped on them.

I very much doubt that they are concerned. And even if someone raised it they would just say the usual right wing media is creating an issue that doesn't exist.

As far as I know no one has actually posted the wording of the original motion, so even if we got information about what was passed we wouldn't know how big a change it was.

From the DM article:

The BMA last night said its council did not vote on the motion as reported by the New Statesman but refused to reveal the wording of any replacement,

Part of me wonders if the motion ever existed by some gender critical members or staff got wind of an attempt to put forward something so unprofessional and unproven that they leaked it to make sure it wasn't put forward and embarrass the BMA.

Wes Streeting is getting around the table with the BMA on Tuesday to thrash out doctors' pay. I imagine the BMA could do without the accompanying ridicule passing the nonsense motion would have heaped on them. Hannah Barnes is asking for anyone on the BMA Council to brief her on what happened. Hopefully someone does. I'm sure it was a sensible whistleblower who brought her this story.

Or they get promoted to a different role, with the encouragement of the long-suffering department who are just relieved to see the back of them and to be able to get on with their jobs..

Reported in Daily Mail:
The BMA last night said its council did not vote on the motion as reported by the New Statesman but refused to reveal the wording of any replacement, prompting speculation it had merely been tweaked.Leading members of the BMA have controversially backed the use of puberty blockers on Twitter.Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at human-rights charity Sex Matters, said: 'A motion that calls the Cass Review into question is clearly ideologically driven, not based on science or evidence.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13645583/British-Medical-Association-accused-falling-prey-activist-agenda-failing-publicly-landmark-Cass-review-NHS-gender-identity-services-children.html?ito=native_share_article-top

In the UK men don't have to transition to get treatment for endometriosis. Its extremely rare in men. It could be caused by chimerism or a retained twin.

''In the case of endometriosis, metaplasia would explain how the endometriosis cells appear spontaneously inside the body – and how they appear in areas such as the lung and skin. It would also explain the appearance of endometriosis cells in women with no womb – or in men who have taken hormone treatments.''
www.endometriosis-uk.org/causes

What's the average time it takes to diagnose a women with endometriosis? Years - seven and a half years according to the RCOG.

I would imagine if a man actually had endo, then their diagnostic pathway would be a tenth of the time it would take a woman, partly due to medical misogyny but also because there would be a paper or two in it.

IANAD but I can diagnose the bullshit from here.

Agreed - and working with people like that is a nightmare. They go on and on and on about their hobbyhorse. Every meeting they bring it up, they’ll put things in team chats, email organisations leaders etc etc. everyone else just wants to be left alone to do their job so they end up placating them just to get ms radical (or dr radical) to shut up & leave them in peace

and that’s how organisations get captured

It strkes me that, quite often, people who are highly politically motivated, use their profesional role and the access that role gives them, to agitate, lobby and shape policy. This is certainly true of political actors in teaching ( I used to be a teacher). The main drive and focus is on politicking, not the actual function of their profession. They become profesional agitators. It is these people who shape the environment and culture for those others who are not quite so focused on political ideoloogy.

Runswick ( like OJ) is the child of political activists.

That struck me too. I wondered who the ‘top doctor’ was given Runswick only graduated in 2020 and I am guessing her role at BMA is at the expense of at least some time working as a junior doctor.

I'm sure it's not on their bedside tables! I was thinking about the broader movement to enforce consensus on the matter across a variety of platforms - popular media, academic literature, legislation and policy, social media and much more. There are people in that movement who know what they're doing. Not necessarily Foucauldian scholars, but people with some competence as marketing strategists, nudgers and political communicators.