Use of puberty blockers has doubled since NHS "clampdown"

[FannyCann]

archive.ph/2023.11.26-221155/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/26/use-of-puberty-blockers-doubled-since-nhs-clampdown/

Hopefully that is the archive link to article in the Telegraph.

"The number of children being put on puberty blockers has doubled since the NHS pledged to clamp down on the treatment, The Telegraph can disclose.
At least 100 children – some as young as 12 – have been put on the drugs to prevent pubertyy_ since July 2022, when health officials said the practice would be stopped outside of clinical trials after a damning review of children’s gender services."

It goes on to say:

"But in the 12 months to July 2023, the number of children beginning puberty blockers on the NHS rose to 83, which is double the average of the previous two years.
Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to Leeds General Infirmary and University College London Hospital, which receive referrals from the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), revealed at least a further 17 children started blockers between July and October this year, bringing the total to at least 100 since last summer.
This does not include patients given blockers privately or by a GP, while FoI exemption rules relating to small numbers potentially identifying individuals mean this is the most conservative estimate.
The Tavistock has referred dozens more for assessments by hormone specialists."

Meanwhile 16-17 year olds are just referred straight to the adult clinic meaning they are denied any safeguards.

"As many as 2,000 teens aged 16 and 17 have been told they will be sent straight to an adult clinic as delays and backlogs mean they won’t be seen by a children’s service before they turn 18."

Shame on the doctors and other staff who are wilfully ignoring all advice and NHS directives.

And shame on people like the Jolyon Maugham who made it their business to overturn the Keira Bell judgement.

Oh, god. Where is Hilary Cass? How are they doubling down?

I've no idea @ArthurbellaScott

How do they not even have a little self protective caution about not putting themselves at risk of censure and court cases?

It also says:

"A memo seen by The Telegraph from one of the new providers said it was “some way out from agreeing how we will conduct research”."

That's no surprise.
It will be very difficult to design an ethical research programme - RCTs are obviously out of the question.

This is horrendous. Children's mental health services are desperately overstretched, but gender ideology is the one problem hundreds of doctors are keen to get behind and medicalise while weeping crocodile tears about how "trans kids" are under services. ALL CAMHS referrals are under serviced, FGS! But the only one these activists care about is gender dysphoria and putting children on a medical path to transition asap, not dealing with why so many children are in need of mental health services - and are not getting them - in the first place.

It sounds like they have a production line happening with the pressure they are all under, rather than improving service are they just back to normal?

I haven’t been able to read it yet, did it say how many hours appointments these children have had before they received the prescription?

This is dreadful. Absolutely agree Rayon. Kids with depression, autism, anxiety and trauma are left to struggle alone. The moment they announce they are trans they are surrounded by cheerleaders and medicated to hell and back.

RCTs are obviously out of the question.

Why are they obviously out of the question? They couldn’t be blinded to participants because of the effect of the drugs but that doesn’t prevent randomisation of treatment.

The real reasons you can’t do an RCT is because the prescription of puberty blockers AT ALL is unethical. What is know of their impact means we already know the harms hugely outweigh any benefits. The fact that youngsters turn up coached to demand them means they, and their parents, are unable to give informed consent. You would need to ensure impartial psychotherapists but with the type conversion laws on the horizon any psychotherapist who is not also a trans activist is likely to run a mile from anything to do with gender.

The ethics that preclude an RCT quite simply preclude ANY prescribing of PB.

'we already know the harms hugely outweigh any benefits'

Yes. The NHS lets itself down by failing to insist on evidence based treatment.

Depressing but not remotely surprising 😔
The NHS has been organising itself to circumvent the Cass Review for some time now. The two new services are very wedded to the gender affirming route and the fast-tracking of 16 and 17 year olds is appalling (I do hope that the Anna Castle and Mrs A shines light on this and that they win).

Add to this that the funnel of confused children, who believe that we all have a gender identity (and that their puberty distress probably indicates a mismatch with their bodies) is most likely to continue rising.
The direct effect of Saturday's Dr Who episode alone will play through shortly on that front. I suspect the BBC has overreached on its preaching for parents and older neurotypical teens, given how hard the gender identity belief message was pushed in that episode, but the neurodiverse and younger children who watch this will take it as a truth. And they are the ones who are the most vulnerable 😔

This is utterly heart breaking. And it doesn't include all the kids who just get given blockers after a quick phone call to Gender GP.

I haven't seen it, but yes. It sounds like outright propaganda for gender identity, from what I've heard.

We can't do RCTs not for ethical reasons, but because the patients will very likely not cooperate if they don't get assigned the drugs.

Thanks for reminding me about Mrs A and Anna Castle @BonfireLady
I wasn't sure where we were with that case.

I don't feel optimistic for them.

Another story from yesterday's Telegraph.

archive.is/digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1538/reader/reader.html%23!/

"THE parents of a 17-year-old have failed to prevent the teenager from having breast removal surgery after a court was told they believed LGBTQ+ people were “evil and satanic”.
The parents had asked the High Court in London for an injunction banning their child, who identifies as non-binary, from having a mastectomy."

Reading between the lines it sounds as if these parents, who came to the UK 14 years ago possibly come from a culture where obedience is expected from children, especially daughters.

Maybe that contributed to the young woman's determination to identify out of womanhood.

It doesn't sound as if they helped their case. But this may have repercussions for others such as Mrs A.

My archive link seems to have triggered a block in my previous post.

This link may work but only for Telegraph subscribers.

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1538/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1538/pub/1538/page/43/article/NaN

Bother. Now I have to try to remember what I had said.

Thanks for reminding me about Mrs A and Anna Castke @BonfireLady

I don't feel optimistic for them unfortunately.

From the Telegraph report:

"THE parents of a 17-year-old have failed to prevent the teenager from having breast removal surgery after a court was told they believed LGBTQ+ people were “evil and satanic”.
The parents had asked the High Court in London for an injunction banning their child, who identifies as non-binary, from having a mastectomy."

Reading between the lines it sounds as if the parents, who came t in the U.K. 14 years ago, are from a culture where absolute obedience is expected from children. Possibly this may have contributed to a young woman's determination to identify out of womanhood.

It doesn't sound as if they helped their case.
Unfortunately that may have repercussions for others like Mrs A and Anna Castle.

What do you mean by ‘not cooperate’? How does this differ from what they would do if the NHS just didn’t prescribe them? And then it does come back to ethics as how can either arm if the trial be giving genuinely informed consent if they do not understand that there currently is no evidence of benefit?

I was listening to a podcast that made the point that if any patient raises suicide risk then that means they quite simply are unable to give informed consent. If you are suicidal then your mental health is severely compromised and you are lacking capacity.

This is not really clear reporting of the case. The child in question is 18 so the case was just about capacity - does she have capacity to make decisions (including poor ones)? The judge didn’t make any assessment of breast removal surgery and no evidence was presented for or against that. It was just whether the parents (representing themselves) presented enough evidence to show lack of capacity and from reading the judgement it was quite clear they did not.

Indeed. It will come down to what they are being targeted on. Indications are that it's to lower waiting times.... which means pushing children more quickly in to a harmful pathway.

Left and right hand not communicating. Cass urges caution, NHS response is to move everyone through faster to achieve this.

The trials are a big loophole in the proposed approach. Effectively everyone is eligible. It's not too dissimilar to the likely approach to schools' guidance where social transition is "fine" in exceptional circumstances as long as parents are informed.

All of this is just a faster conveyor belt of harm 😔 Presumably under the misplaced hope that it will stop children from going private in to unknown and unregulated "care".

This is a medical scandal that is off the scale and most of the public is being blindsided by all of it.

(The child was 17 at time of the hearing but 18 when the judgement was handed down a few weeks later and the judge was mindful of that)

The NHS is riddled with transideology from top down

IMO the only logical answer is to highlight that gender identity is a belief, not a truth. And that children are being pulled towards this belief as the answer to their puberty distress.
The belief that "we all have a gender identity" needs ripping out of education, healthcare and laws. People can carry on believing that we do, and for trans identified people this will make sense to them, but nobody should be told that it's a universal truth. Children are the most vulnerable to this and it's children who are being failed.

Alongside this, awareness of the acronym as a fetish is equally important. Boys are being pulled towards this in amongst the whole mess of compelled belief mixed with porn, anime and gaming avatars: become what you desire online, find out it turns you on, then become it in real life.

This is a mess and we're failing a generation.

Out of the thousands of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and the many thousands more young people who have issues around gender, 83 in a year is a very small number. Not saying it's not concerning if people (especially children) are being inappropriately prescribed medication, but it's obviously not the first resort for the majority coming through the doors. If it was, this figure would be in the tens of thousands.

It would be good if the NHS/ schools were able to invest in services to help these young people through talking therapies and better mental health/ counselling support.

Unfortunately with so many people seeing it as 'woke ideology', many people are against investment in these kinds of services which could actually help and prevent the use of puberty blockers/ medical interventions in people who don't need them.

@SaffronSpice

What do you mean by ‘not cooperate’?

I mean they will just immediately quit the trial when they find out how they have been randomised.

Isn't it more that children who want puberty blockers would be unlikely to participate in a clinical trial because none of them would want to be assigned to the control group?

The NHS clinics doing this, despite the Cass recommendations, are behaving exactly like the College of Policing/Police forces who are ignoring direct orders, and a judicial verdict, that recording of non crime hate incidents is unlawful so it should be stopped. Police forces and the NHS are ignoring reality in favour of ideology.