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 In addition, there is unpublished evidence that after a year on GnRHa children reported greater self-harm, and that girls experienced more behavioural and emotional problems and expressed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

Oliver Burkeman, Guardian writer on Twitter:

twitter.com/oliverburkeman/status/1103360189049307137

"This is pretty distressing stuff. Perhaps there are good answers to the questions raised here, but they need to be given."

"And, certainly, there can be no credibility whatsoever anymore in the notion that people calling for thorough investigation are fearmongers or bigots for doing so. That’s done with, now."

Yes absolutely orchid.

Oliver is definitely GC.

I'm horrified, and so angry.

This could have happened to any of our children - has happened to some of our children.

How has this been allowed to happen? I just don't have the words to express how angry I am.

Mermaids better not get that fucking lottery money to push this onto more children

I need to take a breath - like everyone here, I'm just so shocked. They knew!

Mermaids already got the money.

They can't have all of it - it was granted in installments over 5yrs.

Write to Matt Hancock and cc your own MP. Mp’s have to reply to their constituents. One or both will reply

Sounds like a good idea RepealtheGRA. My only experience was writing to my MP about trans women in prisons. He offered to write to Justice Minister and I got a good reply that I mentioned here. I did wonder if the response was better because it was to a fellow MP rather than a member of the public.

Tammy I’m another one who hadn’t read your experiences before. It is really hard for you but I hope that your experiences will eventually be taken seriously.
(though I think I’m fortunate in that my MP is less shit than a lot I read of on here)
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One of the reasons that they are getting away with this, and will probably continue to do so in one form or another, is because of the terrible state of psychiatry generally. For those that are interested, the following is a link to an old documentary from American public service television called The Medicated Child - I found it shocking.
www.pbs.org/video/frontline-the-medicated-child/

I can't write my email to my MP and Matt Hancock until Friday, but thinking of the key points

• there is no evidence that use of puberty blockers alleviates gender dysphoria

• the Tavistock's own evidence shows that the use of puberty blockers causes a significant increase in behavioral and emotional problems in girls

• There is evidence that the use of puberty blockers can cause an 8 point IQ drop (link to study upthread)

• In a study in sheep, puberty blockers caused irreversible damage to spacial awareness and problem solving capability (link to study upthread)

• The Tavistock have displayed an astonishing lack of interest in following up members of their initial trial, or in launching further, more rigorous trials to test the effectiveness of puberty blockers in treating gender dysphoria

• Given all this, the Tavistock should immediately stop prescribing puberty blockers, pending conclusive evidence that they bring any benefit, and full investigation of the side effects

• The Tavistock should contact the guardians of all children currently using puberty blockers, make them aware of the points above and suggest that they should stop using them

• Further, there should be a full investigation into the lack of curiousity at the Tavistock about the effectiveness of and the harm caused by this treatment

Biggs has posted a link to the 2015 report with his annotations. I would be interested in the views of those of us who have STEM backgrounds: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/AnnotatedGIDSS_results.pdf

this is about aesthetics isn't it?

you get a 'better' result aesthetically when transing a person who has not been through puberty

that and (as Lang said) hubris are the only explanations I can think of for the behaviour of clinical staff at the Tavi.

Parents and children trusted them to have their best interests at heart

They must have known that the effects were going to be in the negative; why else 'lose' contact with the individuals?

Everyone that works with people where you provide an intervention of some description should want feedback on that intervention; as if what you are doing is adversely affecting the individual you'd want to stop it, and if it is super effective, you'd want to know what is working and more importantly why.

So they knew.

Michael Biggs made a comment today in the Comments section of the original document published upthread.

"I believe that a journalist is putting these questions to her (Carmichael), and we will shortly see how she responds …"

So it looks like at least one journalist is following this up with the Tavi.

this is about aesthetics isn't it?

100%. It's about 'passing'.

The whole thing is absolutely horrifying. The people responsible belong in prison.

I agree with a PP that women's sports is an easy one to get the general public aware of some of the issues. But the systematic child abuse is what is going to be the ultimate downfall of this movement. Once it is truly unveiled to the public what has been going on people will be baying for blood.

Have to keep speaking out regarding safeguarding.

Safeguarding safeguarding.

Good tweet here, keep pointing it out.

twitter.com/radfempirate/status/1103655725178519554?s=21

It's about 'passing'.

And yet for transmen, the early transition doesn't have the same effect. They could transition as adults and still 'pass' just as well. And more girls than boys are currently being referred to the Tavistock.

So it looks like at least one journalist is following this up with the Tavi.

I hope it's Gilligan.

This is so horrifying.

I also have my GNrH story. Like Tammy above ( to you), taking triptolerin (similar to Lupron) for endometriosis has had a quite severe and lasting impact on my health. These are powerful drugs, given out with very little understanding of the effects they have on grown adults, never mind maturing children. I have been waiting for the evidence to come out on this, because it’s been so blindingly obvious to me that these are being given on the basis of an ideology and not a clinical, evidence led basis.

Not safe. Not reversible. Not effective.

Did the benefits outweigh the risks in your case, Sophocles, or do you consider you didn’t have enough info to make a properly informed decision?

Hard to say, hipster, to be honest. It didn’t help with the endo at all, so net effect was worse. It just mean that the side effects from the treatment (flushes, night sweats, panics attacks, crying jags, mood swings, headaches) piled on top of the symptoms of the endo. It’s not an effective treatment for moderate/severe endo like mine was, which should be treated with surgery. By that stage no medical treatment is of help, because you can’t treat bleeding lesions, inflammatory responses and scar tissue by manipulating hormones.

I can get quite bitter about how poorly endo is treated, but it’s off topic for this thread. No child should be given these drugs. We simply don’t understand enough about how they work.

Sophocles

why else 'lose' contact with the individuals?

If they didn't have ethical approval to do the research there would have been no protocol for doing follow-up. I would be interested to know on what grounds ethics was refused. And why the refusal didn't give them pause wrt giving out off-label drugs like smarties.

The best tweet I've seen on this story simply said that the entire thing had more than a few shades of David Reimer and John Money. Only on a much, much bigger scale.

Sophocles it's so baffling that they'd use such harsh drugs on kids.

Just popping this here from another thread that's been started; an excellent response from a transman regarding the value of going through puberty before transitioning and understanding the risks of the medicine needed to transition,

https://quillette.com/2019/03/07/i-have-gender-dysphoria-but-your-trans-identified-child-may-not/

Top left. Front cover on tomorrow's Telegraph. Article about the Tavistock

If this isn't readable see @hendopolis from about 30 mins ago.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/07/nhs-transgender-clinic-accused-covering-negative-impacts-puberty/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
NHS transgender clinic accused of covering up negative impacts of puberty blockers on children by Oxford professor

Full article