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 In addition, there is unpublished evidence that after a year on GnRHa children reported greater self-harm, and that girls experienced more behavioural and emotional problems and expressed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’."

No problem, Datun - if you check back you'll see we were clear about which posts were being removed for guideline breaking, repeating posts or were just being withdrawn when the poster requested (although to be perfectly honest it's not something we always have the (wo)manpower to do, but we did it today so as to be as clear as possible).
We do appreciate not everyone looks at the messages, though, so it might have appeared at first that there were a real crop of deletions, when in fact there were only a couple.
And yes, we agree, the many posts that remain on this thread attest to the fact that the majority of people can get their point across fine. We'd rather interfere as little as possible, please believe us!

Is brain maturation measurable? Can they measure those transmen in the documentary?

This is definitely what they should be doing. Like they have been doing with the sheep. What is completely astonishing here is that usually you would use an animal analogue like the sheep because it would be considered unethical to give a load of untested drugs to children and then scan their brains for resulting damage. But they have been giving the drugs to the children anyway without going to the trouble of monitoring outcomes and so in this case the sheep have arguably had better treatment.

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?

such a good point. a drop from 130 to 122 might not matter too much but (from experience of working in SEN) i would say 100 to 92 would definitely make an impact upon the child's education and life chances.

Hi datun

So someone who had an IQ of 100, would then have an IQ of 92?. Yes, that’s it. So it’s an average effect, you’d expect some to have more and some less.

Here is one paper: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694455/

Quote: According to the results obtained through the cognitive evaluations, the patient presented a decrease in their overall intellectual performance after the onset of pubertal block, pointing to immaturity in her cognitive development (Table (Table11).

There are other studies as well and prostate cancer sufferers in these drugs report ‘brain fog’ and cognitive impairment

And if they stop the puberty blockers, does their IQ go back up?

On what basis did they decide this [8 point IQ drop] is clinically insignificant?

They must be comparing it with suicide risk. They seem to compare everything with suicide risk, in order to justify it as the better (or least worst) option.

They had damn well better have cast-iron proof that the suicide risk diminished rather than increased after medical treatment.

As a former user of GnrHa drugs I have been banging this drum for a few years - nobody listens. I am horrified they are being given to children who don’t have precocious puberty.

Oh hold on, maybe not. IQ is compared against same-age peers, isn't it? So delaying puberty would logically delay brain maturity and make it comparable with a younger child.

Yes, the question is whether these children catch up again when off the blockers.

Or at least, that's one question. The other huge question is whether a child should be kept artificially immature while trying to make a very adult decision about their future.

And if they stop the puberty blockers, does their IQ go back up?

I guess it depends on what the iq test is measuring.

In the sheep study it appeared to affect spatial reasoning (ability to navigate a maze) and in the sheep studied it did not correct or reverse.

Hi Datun
I'm glad to see that you were right about your post not being deleted, imo it deserved to stand.

When shit like this comes into the open, as always the question should be who benefits? The children don't benefit so who does?

"A reduction in long-term spatial memory persists after discontinuation of peripubertal GnRH agonist treatment in sheep"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453016307922

Jesus wept.

So they are suspending these children in an artificial childhood and claiming it's an environment to help future decision-making???

There is absolutely no wonder that it's well documented how children stop feeling like they are trans once they hit puberty. It's the brain maturation helping them to come to terms with their situation.

Puberty blockers will insure they never, ever reach that stage.

It's sick.

ensure

Clearly we use sheep as experimenting on actual children is really quite dangerous.

Oh wait..,

NeurotrashWarrior

Sorry if I'm really dumbing down these questions, but I have no other way of asking.

What area of the brain is responsible for spatial awareness? And is it responsible for anything else?

Datun a sheep's brain has a lot of the same bits as a human's, so is comparable to that extent, but a human's brain has a lot of extra bits that a sheep's brain can tell us nothing about.

If suppressing puberty in sheep is having measurable effects on abilities as fundamental as spatial awareness, learning and memory, then (assuming the effects are the same in a human brain) there could also be all sorts of knock-on effects on other abilities in humans.

If you look into neural pruning, re-organisation of the brain and development of the decision-making areas, it would appear that these blockers arrest brain development permanently.

Of course, as anyone who lives with or works with people with SEN knows, learning continues throughout life. But (speaking from family experience here) if you have the mental capacity of an early teen, no amount of life experience will ever fix that. You can still lead a productive, happy and fulfilling life, of course.

But to think that this potential adverse impact on the brain development of children has not been deemed to be important in any way, even though it may have a profound effect on what they can achieve in life (and may profoundly lower their future potential). In otherwise healthy children...

This is criminal. Up there with some of the worst excesses of the medical profession. No wonder the government doesn't want this debate.

Thanks Tallilah.

I'm really struggling with this. (And I have peaked a million times.)

We are constantly told that puberty blockers are harmless and reversible.

Even though almost 100% of children who go on them, then go on to cross sex hormones.

The fact that they drop eight fucking IQ points might have something to do with those two things.

Its bringing me out in a cold sweat.

I'm learning myself; I teach children with these difficulties. I've only done bits relating to courses on learning delays. So I know how to help them but often they really can't ever learn to the level of a mainstream child as they have cognitive delays.

The study mentions the hippocampus.

If it doesn't reverse, the cognitive delay could be permanent?

I'm as interested though in what happens to the amygdala and hippocampus in this circumstance.

There's major restructuring of the brain during puberty. Hence teen angst but it's an important process to go through.

Brains are plastic but severe abuse in the first 3 years (the other important brain structuring phase) can permanently damage a child's brain. Some impact can be made if those children have specialist input at puberty as that's the second big brain restructure. This is what I've been taught in my local lea safeguarding.

I don’t get how all of this squares with the claim that puberty blockers are ‘reversable’.

Also the brain is now thought to work in large part through the interaction of networks made up of co-ordinated activity in many different brain regions, so even local effects on brain development could potentially have global effects on functioning. This is not an area people should be blithely fooling around with.

Agree fully with Charlie and Tallula.

I’ve been arguing against the use of the term “reversible puberty blockers” for ages - it makes them sound so benign when they are anything but. And I know from personal experience that if those children have long lasting health issues as a result of the drugs, they have no chance of anyone caring or finding a doctor who has any idea what’s going on. I’ve been trying for 11 years!

This is horrifying. I read this thread earlier, including most of the deleted posts, and I still can’t come up with anything coherent to say.

People need to be struck off over this, some people probably need to go to prison.

Talking of being struck off, isn’t it the good doctor’s hearing with the GMC today?