@Nefelibata33
Puberty blockers aren't damaging. They just prevent the onset of puberty, it just gives someone who's trans time before the onset of something that they really don't want to happen.
I don't think adults who aren't trans have the right to tell kids who are trans what they can or can't do.
I despair really. It's not about protecting children ultimately. That's just an excuse for a load of unnecessary hatred. In reality, it's just that lots of people don't like trans people. I wish people would come out and say it, just be honest. It's irrational hatred
This is a statement betraying such profound ignorance I can only echo a previous poster: I am embarrassed for you.
If you're not too busy accusing strangers on the internet of hatred, I urge you to read up on GnRH analogues (only called puberty blockers when used in pediatric medicine), their history, the deaths they caused, including in children and the downright irresponsible way in which the FDA continues to ignore tens of thousands of reports of serious adverse side effects of the drug. Between 2013 and 2019, that's more than 46,000 including over 6000 deaths in the US alone. The FDA itself on investigating these reports (and other reports concerning different drugs) has publicly stated several times that it estimates that only between 1 and 10% of serious adverse side effects are ever reported to the FDA, so the true number of people damaged by GnRH analogues is likely more than ten times larger than the known figures.
Please note what this is a discussion of the facts of giving puberty blockers to children with precocious puberty or stunted growth. Objections to their use in these children has nothing whatsoever to do with hatred, irrational or otherwise and everything to do with preventing harm coming to children from a medical treatment.
Puberty blockers aren't damaging.
This is an insidious lie. It goes hand in hand with two other insidious lies:
Puberty blockers have been used in children with precocious puberty for decades without problems.
and
The safety of puberty blockers used in children has been very well researched and there are no longterm side effects.
For the truth we have to look to the US, where thousands of women who received the GnRH analogue Lupron to treat precocious puberty or ensure a taller stature are desperately trying to raise awareness of the debilitating, life-limiting longterm side effects of the drug.
By now, most of us here on Mumsnet know about the effect GnRH analogues have on bone health, causing brittle bones which has caused paralysis in cases where the spine was particularly damaged by the drug as well as incontinence. Most of us have heard about the chronic, debilitating pain puberty blockers caused in the young patients and now adult child patients.
What's less known is that GnRH analogues are extremely powerful neural function modulators, also causing debilitating mental health issues, including severe depression, personality disorders, suicidality, anxiety and other mood disorders.
The EU completed a review of mental health issues caused by GnRH-analogues in 2010. Since then warnings about the drugs causing depression and suicides have had to be added to the patient leaflets in the EU.
In the 28 years since licensing the drug, the FDA has carried out several safety reviews of Lupron, acknowledging its dangerous side effects in all patient groups for whom the drug is used, but it is unwilling to withdraw the licence. (If you know anything about how the FDA goes about licensing drugs, you'll know the process is neither transparent nor as thorough as it should be.)
After the company that developed Lupron was forced to enter into evidence all studies it conducted on the efficacy of the drug when used in women with endometriosis, Dr David Redwine analysed the raw data and found that the FDA had only been provided with summaries that misrepresented the findings and omitted data from patients who were adversely affected. When he submitted a 300-page report to the FDA it did not dispute his findings. A year after Dr Redwine's submission it merely published a response saying no regulatory action necessary.
In 2012, a law proposal in New York was tabled to prohibit the prescription of the drug without including a warning on the bottle stating that it could cause death, heart attacks, diabetes and seizures.
Given the immense commercial interests connected to this drug, which makes more than 600 million dollars annually in the US alone, it is almost impossible to get that licence withdrawn. And not just in the US. The 2010 EU report for instance is almost entirely redacted in order to protect those "commercial interests."
<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.madamadari.com/endometropolis/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Redwine-Lupron-presentation-Brazil-The-D-is-silent.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjx46SXiIvyAhXkhf0HHYUnC4sQFjAJegQIJRAC&usg=AOvVaw1SqpRS48-bp8-JZgo8FrUE&cshid=1627657618764" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here is Dr Redwine's analysis of the data btw.
So, yes, puberty blockers are indeed damaging and they have horrific side effects (just to add a few more: causing cancer, gastro-intestinal diseases, heart diseases, lung diseases, feral malformations, ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome, polycystic ovariansyndrome and so on). And it doesn't matter whether it's Lupron or Triptorelin (branded as Trelstar, Decapeptyl, Gonapeptyl), Goserelin (branded as Zoladex), Histrelin (branded as Vantas, Supprelin), Nafarelin (branded as Synarel) or Buserelin (branded as Suprefact, Suprecor). Lupron is merely the best known because most sold of the lot. All of them have a known adverse event profile. That's because GnRH analogues are bloody dangerous drugs listed as "Hazardous" for HCPs handling them btw, that cause a lot of life-long, debilitating and often disabling side effects.
So much for not damaging and used without problems. Now a quick foray into how well researched their safety is in children. In a development that should surprise no one, they're not well researched at all. Available studies are sparse, subject numbers are usually in the single digits. Studies frequently omit data from child patients with adverse reactions (or as in the case of children who died while receiving Lupton for precocious puberty, the study authors declare no connection between death and drug without providing any supporting evidence for such a declaration).
This is a well known problem in drug trials generally, owed in no small part to the conflict of interest that arises from having the drug company seeking to sell the drug fund and organise its safety trials.
The situation is so dire that in one paper I read recently, one study author researching treatment options for precocious puberty lamented the absolute dearth of reliable studies into the safety of GnRH analogues when used in children.
There is no comprehensive body of research into the safety of these drugs when given to children for precocious puberty or stunted growth. It does not exist in anywhere near the volume that it needs to to prove safety. Everyone assumes it does, because the drug is widely subscribed.
Lots of information about the dangers of Lupron can be found on this website:
lupronvictimshub.com/index.html
Some patient and parent testimonies are here:
www.hormonesmatter.com/lupron-precocious-puberty-parents-patients-speak/
Looking into this horror show of drugs however at least explains why the use of puberty blockers in children diagnosed with gender dysphoria has not been shown to improve mental health outcomes.
Because these drugs cause mental health problems. Several patient and parent accounts in the link above describe children who turned suicidal, some as young as 8, after being put on these drugs for precocious puberty.
We are constantly confronted with the claim that children diagnosed with gender dysphoria must be given puberty blockers because they are so severely depressed, even suicidal that not to do so is hateful and unjustified.
How do you justify giving drugs proven to cause depression and suicidality in child patients to children who are already depressed and suicidal?