Hilary Cass on Woman's Hour 9.10.24

I guess a placebo based trial would be useless

placebo based trials are very often unethical as they deny patients alternative effective treatment. They are also often used by drug companies (along with short followup, small sample size, highly selected patient populations, and carefully selected outcomes) to inflate effectiveness. If their ‘miracle drug’ reduces pain by 10% then what good is that if paracetamol reduces pain by 50%? Especially is their miracle drug has significant side effects….

“That is the case for many, many recognised conditions.”

What other conditions take a healthy body and create life time patients with physical health issues?

This is a very weak argument when you consider the degree of damage and regret associated with this treatment for a mental health condition. And a philosophical belief?

What other irreversible treatments are considered acceptable for physically healthy children purely for a philosophical belief ?

Proven side effects of Triptorelin:

https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drugs/triptorelin/#side-effects

I had it in my enormous "saved posts" list!

Oh! Thank you, I was searching and couldn't bloody find it.

I'll copy and paste it and save it somewhere sensible this time.

Here it is Arabella:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5158567-health-secretary-updates-mps-on-government-and-nhs-englands-work-to-improve-gender-identity-services-implement-recommendations-of-dr-hilary-casss-independent-review-includes-extension-of-puberty-blocker-ban-to-nov-26th-review-of-adult-svcs?reply=138582101&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

@Lady1ntheLake Do you know what we haven't seen?

Strong evidence at all that using these drugs actually improves the overall health and mental health of children.

Care to point us to any new studies that we might have missed? I, for one, am very interested in seeing these. It adds to our collective knowledge.

I went through all the drugs that are used in the UK for 'puberty blocking' recently and copied out the known side effects. Wish I could remember which post ...

And here are the WPATH files in case anyone missed them.

Here is one link to the WPATH pdf
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56a45d683b0be33df885def6/t/65e64b9e5cbd756da9fbbdfa/1709591479160/Final+WPATH+Report.pdf

and another
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/wpath-files

Here are some of the reactions:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13156695/Trans-healthcare-doctors-exposed-admitting-patients-young-mentally-ill-understand-consequences-treatment.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/05/wpath-tansgender-hormone-therapy-cancer-links-leaked-emails/

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/wpath-the-truth-about-gender-affirming-healthcare/

https://genspect.org/the-wpath-files-revealed/

Here is a summary from Michael Shellenberger.
https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1764800595473686865?s=20

And the first part. Much more of it requires images.

Here is the threadreader version:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1764799914918490287.html

THE WPATH FILES

Advocates of gender-affirming care say it’s evidence-based.

But now, newly released internal files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) prove that the practice of transgender medicine is neither scientific nor medical.

American Medical Association, The Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and thousands of doctors worldwide rely on WPATH. It is considered the leading global authority on gender medicine.

And yet WPATH’s internal files, which include written discussions and a video, reveal that its members know they are creating victims and not getting “informed consent.”

Victims include a 10-year-old girl, a 13-year-old developmentally delayed adolescent, and individuals suffering from schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses.

The injuries described in the WPATH Files include sterilization, loss of sexual function, liver tumors, and death.

WPATH members indicate repeatedly that they know that many children and their parents don’t understand the effects that puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries will have on their bodies. And yet, they continue to perform and advocate for gender medicine.

The WPATH Files prove that gender medicine is comprised of unregulated and pseudoscientific experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. It will go down as one of the worst medical scandals in history.

Why I Am Publishing WPATH Files And How I Got Them

The written WPATH Files come from WPATH’s member discussion forum, which runs on software provided by DocMatter.

Ninety seconds of the 82-minute video was made public last year. We are making the full video available for the first time.

One or more people gave me the WPATH Files, and my colleagues and I attempted to summarize them as a series of articles. We quickly realized the topic was too sensitive, complex, and large to be dealt with as a work of journalism, and we moved the project to the research institute I founded seven years ago, Environmental Progress (EP).

The Files are authentic. We redacted most names and left only those individuals who are leading gender medicine practitioners to whom we sent “right-of-reply” emails. We know WPATH members discussed our emails internally. No WPATH leader or member has denied that the Files are anything other than what they appear to be.

EP is publishing a 70-page report to provide context for the 170 pages of WPATH Files. Mia Hughes is the author of the report. It and accompanying summary materials can be downloaded at the link below. That link also provides a link to the full WPATH video.

What were the rebuttals?

Two articles. One from very heavily invested transgender people which used studies that didn't say what they, the article writer, wanted to frame them as saying.

Otherwise, nothing that countered any of the information leaked.

But, apparently.... the side effects are not known and documented so more children need to be treated with these experimental treatments that cause a life time of physical and mental pain.

And apparently, those advocating for this feel they can shame others by making false claims of 'transphobia'. Meaning that protecting children's interests is now transphobic.

And around we go...

More on bone density and a follow up to Leo in Sweden. A teenaged female Swedish patient.

www.svtplay.se/video/33358590/uppdrag-granskning/mission-investigate-trans-children-avsnitt-1

The latest from Sweden on the effects of puberty blockers on Leo and others.

As the poster who posted this initially states:

A trans child, Leo was treated for puberty blockers for 4 years. Leo ended up with osteoporosis (significantly below any normal bone density interval), fractures in the back, constant pain and worse mental state.

The journalist also found an additional 12 cases in Stockholm only where children had serious side effects (bone fractures, deep regret from voice changes, injuries, deteriorating mental health and significant weight gains). Leo’s case was not reported and not one of these.

So, we have the Lupron side effects that have been very well known now for years. That covers

Bone density
Connective tissue (to the point where teeth were all falling out and jaws needing significant remedial work)
Even things like pancreatitis

We have a study directly showing

Bone density

We have another study showing

significant calcification of the testes

We have studies indicating that there could be a drop in iQ, which also impacts memory.

We absolutely know that putting female teenagers into menopause is traumatising.

What do people think that the studies will show differently? This is like the moment when Harper's study agreed with Hilton and Lundberg, and we have about another 4 or 5 studies that also now agree with Hilton and Lundberg yet, male people are STILL competing in female sports categories because 'inclusion'.

When we know that male people have physical advantages over female people. But extreme transgender activists refuse to acknowledge this.

Is this where these new studies are going to go? And how many children will be left with irreversible damage because some people are so heavily invested in their philosophical belief that they will fully support this damaging treatment.

Claiming something is 'fact' is not equivalent to providing convincing evidence, I'm afraid.

Come now everyone, we all know that anyone not bending the knee to the genderists is "transphobic"...no point in asking for proof from those who are high on their own supply.

It's a factual description.

No, it's your opinion.

So, do you have that evidence or are we just to believe that you have read someone else's opinion and repeated it here?

Here is yet another peer reviewed study, that is also in line with other reports. This is directly in line with the Lupron findings.

But apparently..... we need further studies.... or is it then going to be said that bone density is a non-issue because at least these patients are 'living the life they wanted'. You know, the dismissive platitude that we have seen activists use time and time again.

Bone density issues caused by GnRH

Bone Health in the Transgender Population
Published online 2019 Jul 2.

Micol S. Rothman and Sean J. Iwamoto

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6709704/

This

Also unknown are the long-term effects of puberty blockade, the effect of changes in body composition and the optimal type, timing, dosage, and route of administration of GAHT for bone outcomes.

Conclusion
The results of the studies that reported impact on the critical outcomes of gender dysphoria and mental health (depression, anger and anxiety), and the important outcomes of body image and psychosocial impact (global and psychosocial functioning), in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria are of very low certainty using modified GRADE. They suggest little change with GnRH analogues from baseline to follow-up.

And

GnRH analogues are frequently employed to provide puberty blockade in adolescents with gender incongruence or gender dysphoria. From their use in other medical conditions such as prostate cancer, their deleterious effects on the bone are well known, although these have the potential to be reversible if treatments are stopped or add back therapies can be given

And

However, Z-scores in the trans boys also showed an expected drop during GnRHa treatment. Similarly, they did not fully make up their bone loss as Z-scores at age 22 were still lower than baseline

Meaning, the authors acknowledge little is known about the lasting effects of puberty blockers. In this study, they propose some positive effect from cross sex hormones for females but ths results show that it doesn’t really make up the loss from puberty blockers.

PLUS

Just adding this piece about bone density for young transitioners here:

https://segm.org/the_effect_of_puberty_blockers_on_the_accrual_of_bone_mass

1st May 2021

Dr Michael Biggs (an advisor to SEGM) has been calling for the release of data from the Tavistock’s experiment since 2019. A subset of the data were finally released following the judicial review into puberty suppression at the Tavistock clinic. Biggs’ reanalysis has just been published in the Journal of Paediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism. It finds that after two years on GnRHa, the Z-scores for a significant minority of the children had declined to a level that should trigger clinical concern.p

It's a factual description.

@RethinkingLife
Thank you for that link- looks very interesting.

"All the links posted raise potential concerns that require further research, which is why a clinical trial is necessary."

And if the already conducted studies are not good enough, why would we expect someone who seems determined to not have any intention to accept these studies to believe the next set of studies that show exactly the same outcome?

How many children's health do you feel it is acceptable to have irreversibly damaged before you accept that these medical side effects have already been studied and already have been peer reviewed and published? Another 10 children? 100? 1000?

Will 1000 children having their health studied with a large proportion then experiencing the same life time negative side effects be enough for you to then say, 'oh, those studies were right all along, sorry?'

Cass was known to have expressed anti-trans sentiments on social media.

Such as?

If you are going to make accusations of this type, I think that you need to provide the evidence that Dr "Cass was known to have expressed anti-trans sentiments on social media."

And if you, personally, cannot find that evidence, why can't you? Did you see it? Or have you just taken some self-identified transgender activist influencers word for it?

Yes, unevidenced assertions are meaningless. They just look like a desperate attempt to smear.

'Transphobic' has been so overused to the point of absurdity that it no longer works as a slur.

In no other branch of medicine is the lack of evidence, and complete disinterest in gaining and learning from evidence normalised. Why would anyone defend such shoddy practice?