Tavistock’s Experimentation with Puberty Blockers: Scrutinizing the Evidence

[Pimmsnlemonade]

www.transgendertrend.com/tavistock-experiment-puberty-blockers/

"To summarize, GIDS launched a study to administer experimental drugs to children suffering from gender dysphoria. Between 2010 and 2014, puberty blockers were given to 50 children. This study yielded only one published scientific article on outcomes. It showed no evidence for the effectiveness of GnRHa: there was no statistically significant difference in psychosocial functioning between the group given blockers and the group given only psychological support. In addition, there is unpublished evidence that after a year on GnRHa children reported greater self-harm, and that girls experienced more behavioural and emotional problems and expressed greater dissatisfaction with their body—so puberty blockers exacerbated gender dysphoria. Yet the study has been used to justify rolling out this drug regime to several hundred children aged under 16. Almost five years after the last patient was enrolled in the experiment, there is no evidence to substantiate Carmichael’s claim ‘that the results thus far have been positive’."

This should be front page news.

I'm utterly bewildered as to how anyone can seek to justify the suppression of important data such as this and the lack of follow up.

My heart breaks for those children and parents going through this.

The deletions are very interesting.
It's quite clear who is watching this thread.

It is isn’t

What they afraid off ?

Is it not, even now, beginning to dawn on you what is happening to children, MNHQ? What are you thinking?

GIRES is now "independent" but it started as the charity arm of Press for Change - you know, those old-school transsexuals that some people think are being thrown under the bus.
There's no point blaming shady AGP men at this stage. Undoubtedly they exist, but blaming them alone lets others off the hook.
Keep on taking screenshots and documenting changes, people.

There is no doubt that some men identifying as women, who have AGP (that's some, HQ, not all. Not a generalisation), are pushing the narrative that being 'born in the wrong body' starts at 'toddlerhood'. In order to sanitise an adult male fetish.

There is plenty of evidence all over the net, including this site, from the wives and ex-wives of these men, and how they re-write their history.

And whilst it's abhorrent, it is, at least, logical.

What other reasons are there to push the narrative? Because there's no doubt it's not an accident.

The deletions are interesting. And illuminating.

Also, very, very silly. Because it actually progresses our understanding of the situation.

Not something you would have thought those reporting would actually want.

I read each one of the deleted posts, they only had one common point of reference.
Little Brown dog
I reckon those deleted posts were so close to the truth, they had to be deleted.
Those wheels are wobbling now

Datun
Reckon yours at 13:21 will go
Be interesting to see if it does

If this analysis is mistaken, surely the Tavi will quickly be able to answer the 7 questions at the end of the Michael Biggs' document?

That will allay all the fears of patients and parents. I look forward to it.

The Director of GIDS needs to answer these questions about the 2010–14 experimentation with puberty blockers:

• On what evidence did you claim in 2014 that ‘the results thus far have been positive’?

• When preliminary results in 2015 showed that children after a year on blockers showed a statistically significant increase in reported self-harm, was this ever investigated?

• Why did you never publish the negative results reported to Tavistock’s Board of Directors in 2015 and to WPATH in 2016?

• Why did your only published article (Costa et al. 2015) using data from the study omit all the outcomes that were negative in the preliminary results (Child Behavior Checklist, Youth Self Report questionnaire, Health Related Quality of Life scale, and Body Image Scale)?

• In your article, why did the abstract and conclusion not report the finding that there was no statistically significant difference between the group given GnRHa and the control group?

• In your article, what accounts for the reduction in the number of subjects from 201 to 71 over eighteen months?

• What steps have you taken to monitor the ‘long-term safety and effectiveness of early intervention’, as these experimental subjects become adults?

Yeps Preston

But if this is now known, surely it opens the door to lawsuits from those given blockers who have had negative physical or psychological effects?

It does. You stand a much better chance of suing if the doctors involved are working off the cuff or with controversial treatments or with something under scrutiny. If they are working with what’s considered the best practice/standard of care then it’s almost impossible to gain redress.

Why do you think there was a huge push to get the standard of care changed? For bodies like WPATH who have no medics to write care guidelines? And for definitions in the DSM and ICD to be changed? For this.

There needs to be a public inquiry,

popchyk pertinent questions indeed.

I’d add: why was an 8 point IQ drop in children on blockers noted as statistically significant but not clinically significant?

I absolutely agree with everything you wrote there, Datun. I saw the deleted posts as well, nothing controversial about them that I could see.

My concern is that if the focus is solely on that aspect of the trans cult phenomenon, it allows lawmakers, medical practitioners and public bodies who have helped this, um, movement become mainstream to blame the bogeyman.
But yes, the bogeyman does exist, and the evidence is everywhere for those who care to look.

The deletions are interesting. And illuminating

Indeed. I'm beginning to have more and more sympathy with conspiracy theorists every day.

PrestonsFlowers

Datun
Reckon yours at 13:21 will go
Be interesting to see if it does

I don't think it will. I made no generalisation, and I made no conflation.

.bowl can I ask about this eight point IQ drop?

Are we talking about normal IQ measured around 100 to 110 mark, thing?( Sorry I'm not a scientist.)

So someone who had an IQ of 100, would then have an IQ of 92?

Is that not an absolutely massive drop?

why was an 8 point IQ drop in children on blockers noted as statistically significant but not clinically significant?

This is the aspect of all this that I have found most incredible. 8 points is over half a standard deviation (assuming they used a standard iq test) or a medium effect size. On what basis did they decide this is clinically insignificant? Did they make any attempt to assess what the effect of such a drop might be on a child's functioning, particularly for children at the lower end of the normal range pre-treatment? Did they monitor the effect over time? And how on earth could anyone justify use of the phrase 'fully reversible' without knowing the answers to these questions?

My concern is that if the focus is solely on that aspect of the trans cult phenomenon, it allows lawmakers, medical practitioners and public bodies who have helped this, um, movement become mainstream to blame the bogeyman.
But yes, the bogeyman does exist, and the evidence is everywhere for those who care to look.

What I meant to say was, I am, quite genuinely, asking what other reason there could be?

Because, if the 'genuine transsexuals' are having a hand in this, then it's not solely AGP.

So what is it?

Did they make any attempt to assess what the effect of such a drop might be on a child's functioning, particularly for children at the lower end of the normal range pre-treatment?

I know I'm not the only one who was struck, in Stella O'malley's documentary, about the slightly child like aspect of those young women who had transitioned.

Also see Jazz Jennings.

Are we really looking at children in adult bodies?

And, is it measurable? Is brain maturation measurable? Can they measure those transmen in the documentary?

Yes Popchyk great point about the questions. Tavistock need to be pushed to answer these, until they do. How can we put pressure on to do so, would the governor who has resigned be aware if this?

So what is it?

I think validation and some warped ideas about safety in numbers. I'm thinking of SW and certain parents. People join cults for all sorts of reasons.

Hi all,
We'd like to clarify that we have applied our own guidelines here, as we do every time we read through threads.

As to the silencing of discussion - MN has long been one of the few places that will allow this conversation to take place, and we don't feel that two deletions (plus three more for repeating the deleted posts and two posts withdrawn at the poster's request) is excessive, or worthy of being told we are complicit in "perpetuating harm" against children.

We do completely understand that feelings are running high, and we have no wish to be the focus of this conversation, but we did want to take this opportunity to clarify, so as to avoid further speculation and derailing, that we moderate according to our own guidelines re civility and generalisation.

I know a lot of people have said it will be sports that will send the whole thing crashing down, and sports is certainly current and opening eyes, but I have always felt it would ultimately be the children that send it all crashing down. When the children start growing up and speaking out about what has happened to them (like that detransitioner group on you tube), when those with an ounce of good judgment see that boys like Jazz were a victim of homophobia, a MBP mother, and medical doctors who put ideology before their patient , when they see adult men who “socially transitioned” at 45 and talking about their “female penis” pushing children and teenagers to take chemically castrating drugs and to surgically mutilate their bodies, and so on.

It’s been appalling to me that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are being prescribed to children based on normal child curiosity, homophobia, and strict sex stereotyping. Just appalling. We know very well the damage that Lupron can have on adults prescribed it for cancer treatment or fibroids, and young girls prescribed it for precocious puberty, but if a boy wants to be a girl because they like pink and mermaids (which is basically what I gleaned from I Am Jazz and is perfectly fine because pink is a colour and mermaids are make believe and not sex-specific), or a girl who is uncomfortable with her body as it goes through puberty (which is completely normal, it’s a weird time for most of us) the people who are supposed to be looking out for their best interests are pushing medication on them without any consideration for the consequences.

Well, now the consequences are going to start coming out and we can see they were either covered up or denied (convenient they just “lost track” of patients to allow them to support that denial - what kind of sloppy study is that? An 8-years old can put better controls on their school science experiment than that).

Thanks Hope. It's very useful for you to specify when you do delete, exactly why are you are deleting.

We are all quite capable, I think, of rewriting our posts to get the point across in a way that is acceptable.

Bumping this without in-depth comment as currently too angry to be coherent. But this needs lots of attention. And as much as I appreciate the need to keep the conversation going, and the behind the scenes pressure, etc, HopeMumsnet, even the behind the scenes members of MN who think FWR are evil harpies must be beginning to question WTF is going on if people are attempting to shut down a thread about the unbelievable scandal that is being uncovered here?