To think 11 year old girls should NOT be eligible for the newly restarted puberty blockers trial?

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/174c8f4252fcd5a5

We know puberty blockers cause permanent harm at any age. 11 is at least 5 years too young. How can the government sanction permanent damage to a child? Hundreds of children, IQ damaged, infertility and sexual function risks, bone density damage, not to mention not addressing that poor child’s underlying mental health issues which should be helped and addressed in the most supportive and humane manner.

I am disgusted Labour can let this horror show go ahead.

Do you think the PM sits on the board of independent medical experts who make these decisions?

The PM doesn’t make these decisions. Silly you.

This is as political as anything else. If the party didn’t want trials to happen, they wouldn’t.

These trials and discussions also happened under the conservatives so what is your point?

And the Chelsey and Westminster hospital will chop their breasts off using taxpayers' money to do it.
It is insane.

That Labour are in power and they’re fine with trials on 11 year olds. They shouldn’t be. Are you fine with it?

No I am not, but people are acting as if it’s Starmer’s fault when all parties have been trying to allow this for years.

Of course you aren't being unreasonable. It's abuse.

Pressure needs to be put on to stop the trials. Not the usual don’t blame Starmer whatever you do.

When they were used why were there no follow ups done to record how patients were getting on? If they were used with great success for years, and they were indeed harmless and reversible, where are the reports from that large evidence base?
And the fact that no one did any of that should ring huge alarm bells.

What trials?

If trials had been done, this state-sanctioned abuse would not be happening now.

If proper records had been kept on the children and adults already treated, and the records released to Cass or NICE, this shot-in-the-dark experiment would not be happening now.

‘Cos if you did follow ups and tracked the evidence you’d have found out it’s a house of cards and full
of shit.

Are parents legally allowed to decide that their children can smoke cigarettes?

Your opening post contains misinformation. We don't "know" that puberty blockers cause long term harm, even Cass couldn't find conclusive evidence that they do - the only concrete evidence of harm in humans that she found was around potential reduced bone density, however the same piece of research showed bone density recovers entirely once blockers are stopped and that there are ways to mitigate harm using supplements. The same drugs have a long history of being used in both children and adults to treat other conditions; there is no reason they'd be safe for these patients but dangerous for others. Even Cass acknowledged there is an argument for their use ; her concern was about identifying which patients were most likely to benefit, she never recommended an outright ban.

From your posting history it's clear you are ideologically opposed to the existence of trans people and don't believe people should be allowed to transition. Medical decisions should not be made by politicians or by anti-trans activists. Bluntly, this is the business of the participating patients, families and their clinicians, not yours.

No, but if a tattoo was an essential medical procedure, provided by a hospital, you probably would be able to give consent on his behalf.

Gillick competence also exists, otherwise we'd be unable to provide medical treatment to children at all.

Please link to the research. As someone with severe osteoporosis I would really like to read it. TIA.

No, you're wrong. Puberty blockers are carefully prescribed to younger children to prevent early puberty. Once the child reaches 11/12, they stop taking them to allow them to develop healthily.

Stopping puberty in a teenager causes physical and mental damage and you can't get those years or development back.

Yes. But. This isn’t is it…

These trials on children are not that though.

Literally all of those arguments or questions are answered in the trial protocol. Have you read it? Or even just the study synopsis? It is publicly available on the link I posted previously and will describe the aim, possible benefit, consent process, risk balance etc.

There is a legal distinction between consent and assent, so it very literally does change that. You can't just make statements and say they're fact, that isn't how facts work.

The drug(s) are used in practice for various indications. This isn't a study to primarily investigate what the drug does (although it is part of the secondary outcome), it is a study to investigate the risks and benefits of a therapy that has been and is used, and that many people want to be able to access.

One of the inclusion criteria is literally that the child/young person has participated in other forms of care for their holistic health. Another is that they must have a diagnosis of gender incongruence. They also must be thoroughly counselled on the risks, multiple times.

And finally, all research that reaches participants is ethically approved. An ethics panel will have reviewed this in great detail and have agreed it can proceed. Why would your opinion (based on, as I assume, not even reading the protocol) trump that formal process?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37902760/ although refers to people who then go on MAF hormones

Because people who were on them didn't consent to have their medical data recorded and published..? That is literally what a trial is for, and therefore why this research is being done. There may be some post-marketing data for the medications but that would be muddied by the fact they are used for things like prostate cancer and endometriosis.

It's absolutely evil.

The ‘just a pause button’ isn’t true.
dd was assessed for precocious puberty, at the time (over a decade ago) I assumed if she had pp she could just be given blockers, I wasn’t too worried. Her consultant said that blockers were not without complications and that they could affect bones and other development. Thankfully dd did not have precocious puberty so we didn’t have to make that choice, but clearly it’s been known for some time that puberty blockers have side effects. Also I am unclear whether you can restart puberty once the age window has been missed, I haven’t read up on this recently but last I heard it wasn’t clear at all because almost all children on blockers go on to take cross sex hormones and don’t go through a proper puberty at all. This affects brain development as well as physical development, as puberty is a multi system stage, it is key for your brain.