https://twitter.com/Bernard_Lane/status/1666769131021168640?t=TnxOgAbXRP4-XLbnIq4-3g&s=19
"Norway's health chiefs are to decide whether to classify medicalised gender change for trans-identifying minors as "experimental", which would impose strict controls over access to these treatments, according to the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang (VG.)
https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/l3X7O3/helsedirektoratet-hormonbehandling-av-barn-kan-bli-strammet-inn
In an interview, the Norwegian Directorate of Health's boss, Bjørn Guldvog, says talks have begun to decide if hormonal treatments should be restricted to a single, national specialist gender service. Those talks include the Oslo University Hospital clinic, Rikshospitalet.
Norway is not as far down the road to caution as Finland or Sweden. In March, there was a breakthrough report from the independent Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board, which said treatment lacked evidence & patients should be told it's experimental.
https://twitter.com/Bernard_Lane/status/1634057899097075713?t=lVAtKqLFrWdGiH_al_mLSA&s=19
This put pressure on Guldvog & his health directorate, I'm told by "Oskar" from the parents support group Gender Identity Challenge Scandinavia. Until now, Guldvog had said he would not reclassify treatment as experimental because this would end the right of access to treatment.
In VG's June 4 interview, Guldvog says: "There has been a large increase in [medical transition of minors], and as I understand it, the professional community is unsure whether the practice that has been established for several years should still be the same."
If reclassified as experimental, "the treatment must be carried out with associated research, a clinical protocol, which follows each patient throughout the course of the treatment & can explain how things have gone when you come to different points in time [after treatment]."
Confining treatment to a single national clinic would stop private & municipal services such as the Health Centre for Gender and Sexuality (HKS) in Oslo from giving puberty blockers and hormones to minors, often patients rejected as not suitable by the Rikshospitalet clinic.
In 2021, VG reported, HKS gave cross-sex hormones to 100 adolescents & adults. At Rikshospitalet, females stand out in the fast-growing caseload. VG has also reported on a plastic surgeon who carried out trans mastectomies with two girls under 18.
https://twitter.com/Bernard_Lane/status/1659359809945370630?t=gStmQ34Mxc22qyKYF97WcQ&s=19
Guldvog sets out the case for concentrating hormonal treatment of minors within clinical trials at a single national service: "For this [treatment] to be justifiable and sustainable over time in Norway, we believe that the assessment and initiation of puberty-suppressing...
...and hormonal treatment before the age of 18 is a function that should be carried out by the specialist health service. And that is what we are working to achieve."
Asked by VG if it's justifiable to give minors treatments with unclear long-term effects, Guldvog says: "It may be, but I don't want to discuss the defensibility in relation to individual cases. A doctor has a responsibility to consider the best interests of [patient]."
Asked if his health directorate is concerned that some patients had suffered permanent harm, Guldvog says: "I'm always concerned that the health service may have provided treatment on the wrong basis...
... But we have not received reports that many people have suffered injuries as a result of the treatment."