Michael Biggs paper on the Tavistock

[RedToothBrush]

Seems to have been published yesterday.

Link to pdf in the following tweet.

This paper when published will document an appalling scandal the NHS is inflicting on children.

Andrew Lewis @ lecandardnoir
Hidden trials. Suppressed results. Misleading parents and children entering trials. Ideologically driven treatments. Cover ups. You name it. #alltrials
t.co/34pe8JOmvG

If this is even half accurate Carmichael should be struck off and jailed.

Worth reading.

I was given it to treat endometriosis, pippa. It’s no better at doing that than it is at treating gender dysphoria, the sledgehammer of wrecked health doesn’t justify the nut they’re trying to crack in either case.

Also in children, used to treat precocious puberty, but I can’t comment on the efficacy of that, as I don’t know.

SophoclesTheFox you had it for endometriosis - I was listening to Women's Hour on R4 earlier today and they had a bit on endo and a woman was saying that at 20 & 30 she was prescribed what she called "GNRH" (I think, not sure if that's the right order of the letters) which put her into an immediate temporary menopause - I thought maybe these drugs were different to the puberty blockers which I thought had an "A" at the end - GNRHA - but now I think they are the same and this is what they give these children? I think they did say on WH too that these drugs were brutal (again, if I remember correctly).

Sophocles that sounds horrible, I am sorry. Please do speak out about it where you feel you can, Tammys been patiently sharing her own awful experiences on MN since these drugs started to be questioned here and it was one of the things that made me realise how bleak the long term future is likely to be for these poor kids.

Sorry, just found the post that says you have been explaining this here too! Thank you.

The only kids I've known being given blockers for too early onset puberty have been severely disabled, where the effects physically and emotionally for the child and the carers are considered severe and worth delaying to give the child better quality of life, and early onset was something thought to be associated with the child's already complex condition. Often these children wouldn't be able to consent or to communicate preference. Its occurred to me a few times reading this thread to wonder what the statistics are around this and whether this is relevant.

Thank you Sophocles

A quick google shows that Triptolerin is also used as chemical castration to reduce sexual urges in sex offenders.

Among prostate cancer patients Triptorlelin is known as "a medicine from hell" due to its devastating side effects (Wikipedia).

How can such a drug be given to confused and vulnerable children without any unbiased and ethical long-term clinical trials?

Madness.

Sophocles thank you for sharing.

Its awful that such powerful and really awful drugs are being used on children in this way. If they have been used to chemically castrate sex offenders then there can be no doubt about them having a similar effect on young people. If the patient information stated in plain English,

These drugs have been used to chemically castrate sex offenders so will have the same effect on you/your child.

How many would consent? If they did it would be concerning.

Someone upthread asked about whether puberty blockers have an effect on height.

I read a long article a while back regards the long-term effects of blockers in American women who were a prescribed GnRH agonist as children for precocious puberty and because they were small for their age. These women have gone on to suffer a range of long term health problems including osteoarthritis in their 20s.

From what I understand: most long bone growth occurs prior to puberty, so if you block puberty, you have more time to get taller- hence the drug being prescribed to kids who were shorter than what is considered normal.

If I've got that right, male and female trans kids on puberty blockers would grow taller. This would have the desired aesthetic effect for FTMs because they'd be closer to the average height for men, but not for MTFs because they'd potentially grow taller than they would if they'd underwent normal puberty.

This might also explain the bone density issues among females- the bones are getting longer but not 'filling out' properly.

I met a male trans child about a year ago. They were 12 going on 13 at the time and on puberty blockers, and they were staggeringly tall for their age- nearly 6 foot of beanpole. Of course this could have been down to their genetics and not the drugs. Anecdata does not equal data after all.

If I've got anything wrong above, please correct me as I'm not a doctor! i'll try to find the article.

Found it!

www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

Note the article doesn't mention that this drug is prescribed to children with gender dysphoria. It's almost like they didn't want to poke that particular hornet's nest

The Italian castrati grew very tall.
They were soprano choirboys who were castrated to keep their singing voice intact.

beardedvulture my understanding is slightly different - but coming from this as a parent with a child who was query precocious puberty (I'm not a medic) so had looked into it then. I thought that long bone growth accelerates rapidly during puberty, then the growing regions of the bone change and become unable to grow further. So a puberty blocker prevents that acceleration, and you don't get the rapid height gain associated with puberty while you are on blockers.

For children with precocious puberty, one of the problems when it is left untreated is an early growth spurt - from say age 6 and from a lower baseline height than a 11 or 12 year old will have - so the bones stop growing at a lower height, and the child's full potential height is not reached. Use of puberty blockers I understand prevents this happening. The growth spurt will happen when they come off the blockers at a more 'normal' time for puberty, and will begin from a more 'normal' height.

My child had suddenly gone up the centiles at age 6, and this was one of the reasons they were referred to an endocrinologist, along with a couple of other symptoms.

...and I am relieved to say that the growth spurt in my child steadied and there was no suggestion of them needing the drug. The more I read about it, the more I am thanking my lucky stars.

Niceberg- thanks for clarifying that! I'm glad for your child's sake they weren't prescribed these drugs- the effects sound horrendous.

Red I totally agree that politicians and journalists are responsible as well, but the pool of ‘experts’ is limited.

The discipline of children with gender dysphoria was a small sleepy niche. I see dd as being swept up in the big first wave of girls wanting to transition. The tsunami of new patients caught the Tavistock off guard. They were used to working with a very small number of children, many of whom were involved with Mermaids. Giving them a close relationship. Going from the figures in this, 2015 was the year referrals had a huge jump. 2015 was also the year Kenneth Zucker was sacked. This discredited his more balanced approach and set the course we’re now on.

The mixture of more patients, no funding, and the patients being in acute distress, is a heady one. How do you decide who gets fast tracked, who’s most in need? Corners get cut, patients and parents learn the script and tricks to get seen quicker.

I think incompetence and an overwhelmed service takes a lot of the blame too.

Mermaids was a different organisation in 2012. I think Susie Green became chair of Mermaids in 2013 and their first paid CEO in 2016. The timing’s interesting.

Thanks for the flowers, all - back atcha

Interesting debate on promoting growth versus slowing growth - as with so much of this, the actual facts are hard to determine.

Does anyone know if anything will now happen to those implicated in this report?

The timing’s interesting.

Also the CBBC programme 'I am Leo' was first shown in 2014.

I'd no idea the drug was used to chemically castrates sex offenders. Bloody hell.

to y and sophocles this must be hard to read.

Jeez. As more information leaks out, it just gets worse and worse. These clinicians seem to be on a relentless path of no return. Making more and more questionable decisions with a horrifically cavalier 'might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb' attitude.

Sorry Tammy not y !

niceberg I wiuld imagine the effect would be different on girls and boys. Girls stop growing around when the periods start something to do with fusing of the pelvis and leaving enough space for future pregnancies. But boys grow well into puberty.
I have no idea what the impact could be but couldn't figure out with your post either. (Not asking you to disclose the sex of your child - just saying I am still muddled and shall shut up now and get back to reading)

OldCrone there was another series on Radio 4 called Just a Girl which was first broadcast in 2014 and made into a series for CBBC in 2016. I know for a fact that Susie Green was involved in the CBBC production. It features a trans girl desperate for hormone blockers, who is then put on them. Everything’s tickety boo, just the national broadcaster promoting hormone blockers as ‘totally reversible’ and ‘life saving’.

I’m adding the BBC, and it’s commissioners to the list of those to blame.

I am utterly horrified. I don’t even know what to say other than what an appalling mess. I am devastated for all those children who have been lied to, experimented on and made into a medical patient for life.

I could cry reading about the side effects. Thanks to Tammy and Sophocles for sharing your own experiences

I have been suffering with pelvic pain for 2 years now and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. These poor girls can’t possibly understand what they have to come - womb atrophy, horrific pain, all the issues with bones, god forbid a heartbreaking scar on their arm where a surgeon cut away a fucking strip of skin to make a pretend penis. I wish I could tell them what pelvic pain feels like. How it gnaws at you, how nothing helps, how doctors haven’t got a clue so you just get told to do mindfulness. It ruins your life. You can’t sit, can’t walk too far, can’t do anything you used to do. I can’t even work and I struggle to look after my son without help because the pain is crippling. Sorry. Me-rail. It just makes me so fucking furious that these doctors and lobby groups and activists are all so casual about pushing children into being a lifelong medical patient with so many horrifying health issues. It is INSANE.

PainNoGain

I agree, it's insane. Absolutely horrifying.

painnogain I don’t have pelvic pain now, thankfully, but I hear you about how draining and devastating it is.

It is hard to read, datun because I just cannot reconcile this sunny, optimistic “we’re just hitting the pause button on puberty!” rhetoric being peddled by useful idiots with the often grim reality that is being on these drugs. It’s utterly, utterly irresponsible, and the fact that it’s often posed as an alternative to someone’s kid killing themselves compounds my horror.

No. Just no to all of it. You supporters of mermaids, you adults pushing the line that a child always knows they’re trans, this is to YOU: Stop drugging and castrating kids, stop creating the environment in which kids can be drugged and castrated, and stop lying about the reality of what’s happening.

I don’t even have a dog in this fight, because I don’t have children.

Why don’t I have children? One of the reasons is THIS FUCKING DRUG.

Sophocles I’m not sending more flowers, it’s not enough. Just sending my absolute understanding and lots of love.

I’m not fucking having any of this. I have already written to my MP, copying in my local NHS trust, plus my GP surgery. I am utterly committed to holding these fuckers’ feet to the fire. Nobody should get away with this. It cannot be allowed to be the usual revolving door between high profile jobs and charities and government. Fuck that. Some of these people should be blacklisted for life for what they’ve done, or go to prison. It’s that serious. We all know it’s that serious, but there seems to be a fundamental lack of concern about how serious it all is amongst the people concerned.

My most recent job (before my pelvic pain forced me to give up my dream job and work in general) was a head of department role where I had senior management authority over nearly 100 staff. Not a medical setting. Not even an important setting in the grand scheme of things. But if I had introduced a protocol which, for arguments sake, went against GDPR rules, and which hadn’t been proven “safe” I would be sacked for gross misconduct and my name would be mud.

And yet, these senior clinicians are experimenting on children. They are experimenting on children, in plain sight, unapologetically. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On?