To nominate the principle authors of the CASS review for this..

[NameChangeCass]

“Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.”

https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459.short?fbclid=IwAR0hTt57o-yFS61aJE-IGCpKSPaDs--rdrPlbiby_wBCF1czpAWDaCcAEcM_aem_ATiWMtvZxiSzw8pj9CX271gyDByuMHTOKwQskBcCXx9aZOj1IPusHJ_z79olcRiFlhE

Are you going to answer this, @NameChangeCass ?
I'd also like to know whether you have experience in this type of research, especially health research, as a number of people responding on this thread do. Because you're making a pretty serious accusation against the very experienced authors and the quality control team. It's also a serious accusation against those who commissioned the study, evaluated the interim and final findings, and accepted it, if you're suggesting that they're all stupid enough to accept a report that's so obviously invalid.

"Nominating" the authors to take part in a study that would have fatal consequences half the time isn't a good look either. How about writing to Dr Cass instead, pointing out the rookie mistakes you think she and the team have made?
Or instead of making mistakes, do you think she's corrupt and working to an anti-trans agenda, despite all she's said about her deep concern for these children and desire to ensure they get effective treatment?

Don't you think it would be very strange for the NHS, which has embraced gender ideology very enthusiastically, to commission, accept and act on a flawed or corrupt anti-trans review study?

Op, the fact you are using the outdated term 'trans children' suggests you are not posting in good faith.

As the Tavistock whistle blower Dr Michael Biggs made clear, the vast majority of gender questioning children will desist. This is a fact that has been known for some time. Mermaids used to state it on the front page of their website.

As Dr Biggs points out, only a tiny number of gender questioning children will become a trans adult and no-one can tell which ones it will be.

To give all gender questioning children a toxic drug like puberty blockers is as crazy as castrating all teenage boys just because a minority of them will get testicular cancer as they get older.

OP do you understand the difference between ignoring something and listening but being unconvinced

ok but the reasons given for being “unconvinced” were (in the majority) that the evidence didn’t come from a blinded RCT.
My AIBU was about the sense of being “unconvinced” by evidence simply because it doesn’t come from a blinded RCT (and consequently demanding all useful evidence must be produced in this way). Hence the parachute analogy.

"blinding did not come into the quality scoring of the papers included in the systematic review of puberty suppresion in gender dysphoric adolescents that was commissioned by the Cass Review, and was not a criteria by which studies were excluded."

Are you suggesting that if you think a poll is of low quality the results should be given less weight than that of one made using higher quality methods?

This is total pigeon chess but just for the avoidance of doubt, as the BMJ said, it wasn’t just that they were not blind RCT but also that there was next to no follow up or clarity of outcomes

Where does your blurry screenshot you seem to think is evidence come from?

Your parachute analogy is stupid, and you know it, for all the reasons already posted.

The BMJ article (the one you say backs up what you're trying to assert) says this:

The evidence base for interventions in gender medicine is threadbare, whichever research question you wish to consider—from social transition to hormone treatment.

For example, of more than 100 studies examining the role of puberty blockers and hormone treatment for gender transition only two were of passable quality. To be clear, intervention studies—particularly of drug and surgical interventions—should include an appropriate control group, ideally be randomised, ensure concealment of treatment allocation (although open label studies are sometimes acceptable), and be designed to evaluate relevant outcomes with adequate follow-up.

One emerging criticism of the Cass review is that it set the methodological bar too high for research to be included in its analysis and discarded too many studies on the basis of quality. In fact, the reality is different: studies in gender medicine fall woefully short in terms of methodological rigour; the methodological bar for gender medicine studies was set too low, generating research findings that are therefore hard to interpret. The methodological quality of research matters because a drug efficacy study in humans with an inappropriate or no control group is a potential breach of research ethics. Offering treatments without an adequate understanding of benefits and harms is unethical. All of this matters even more when the treatments are not trivial; puberty blockers and hormone therapies are major, life altering interventions.

@NameChangeCass you appear to believe in the idea of a 'trans child.'

If you think Cass was wrong to suggest that gender confusion is NOT the same as being left-handed, can you please explain why gender confused girls outnumber boys six to one?

"Am I being unreasonable to fantasise about the death of a consultant paediatrician as punishment for writing a report that I didn't like"

Of course methods are important.

This particular poll reflects people’s opinions. Although I don’t think mumsnet is representative, I do think that most people in this contrary currently have very skeptical views of trans healthcare.

Are you suggesting that if you think a poll is of low quality the results should be given less weight than that of one made using higher quality methods?

Well quite.

That lovely, yellow highlighted document that we’ve all seen on X - I’m just curious. There’s clearly a long list of reasons why each of the papers were found to be of low quality. Why is the screenshot zoomed out to focus on the lack of double blinds?

Don’t bother answering - we can all see why for ourselves. It’s to force an interpretation that would not be forthcoming if we saw the whole thing.

It’s rather like the way you’re choosing to believe people on X with no medical expertise instead of groups like, oh, the editor of the British Medical Journal. The sheer arrogance and stupidity on display is breathtaking.

And if you read the BMJ snippet there - the thing they're actually mainly concerned with is just having a control group. That's the issue. Not so much the lack of blinding ("sometimes acceptable") or randomisation ("ideally").

I wonder why you are so intent on characterising it otherwise.

You clearly have neither the knowledge or understanding of research methodology in medicine and healthcare nor the ability to form a coherent argument so that people can follow your reasoning.

Rejecting studies that do not produce the quality of evidence required to make treatment recommendations is absolutely standard for systematic review. This is not ignoring them. It’s reviewing them, assessing their methodology and categorising them accordingly.

Control groups and blinding matter enormously. You need to control for placebo effects. You need to be sure that the intervention caused the effects - not something else.

It’s not some dreadful conspiracy. This is how evidence is evaluated.

If gender ideologists are so certain they’re right, why are you all so terrified of generating high quality research evidence?

Op, if you're actually concerned and curious about this, Testing Treatments is a free book that breaks it all down in a pretty digestible way:

www.testingtreatments.org/

As far as I'm aware, the authors are completely neutral on this specific topic area.

It’s zoomed in because the original shot I shared was blurry and couldn’t be read. Read the full thread and you will see.

No wonder the OP of this thread felt the need to undergo a name change before posting it.

On that basis alone, OP is not being unreasonable. I'd also be embarrassed to put my name to such incomprehensible, ill-reasoned and ignorant twaddle.

Fail.

There is no way the OP has actually even had a cursory skim of the contents of that report. No way.

It's painfully transparent and embarrassing.

Oh, so you’re just unable to see all the other reasons those papers were weak? Because we’re not.

That lovely, yellow highlighted document that we’ve all seen on X

I haven't - what is it actually from? OP says from "the paper"? Do I gather it is from one of the 2 "non-discounted" papers?

(In which case is the OP "ignoring" the other 101, and the Cass review itself?)

If you look at the OP's posts, they haven't offered anything substantive. They are trying to undermine the report for their own reasons, not comment on the "evidence" they think proves it wrong.

There’s no way this OP has the skills or knowledge to engage meaningfully with the report.

But, this OP is absolutely determined to shout about how wrong Cass got it anyway.

This. Although the posting style is definitely sounding familiar.

It’s from this paper which was heavily relied on in the Cass report (eg see page 182) in f Cass. This paper was the subject of a twitter thread shared
on page 1 of this (mumsnet) thread which claimed that this paper hadn’t discounted evidence on the basis that it was from non blinded , RCTs.
(I’m sorry it’s difficult to post links because I have a baby in my arms and am on a phone rather than laptop, so screenshots are easier, but you can look it up).