No more puberty blockers for children from the NHS - reported in the Times!

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

This is massive - and long overdue

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/97ce2e81-2884-42f5-bb82-2a2778f2cc91?shareToken=9568e79f0683beea68ffe5e978b05a29

It's honestly today like listening to a room full of Katies from Horton Hears a Who when listening to those in denial, insisting that this is wrong, that it should be choice, that it's all safe. In their world, everyone eats rainbows and can fly.

be forced to go through the wrong puberty against their will

It's puberty, it's a very normal part of growing up, it's nature, it's healthy, it's harmless.

Maybe a lot of these children are just scared of growing up, full stop, for some reason. We all know that the pre-teen/early teen stage can be scary and daunting and lots of heightened feelings and emotions due to hormones racing around. It is also a time when lifelong mental health illnesses begin to present and cause distress. The NHS is not there to the prevent normal stages of human development on a whim.

Stonewall and Mermaids et al must be the only health related charities in the country that actively campaign against more research to be done. Usually charities such as BHF, Alzheimer’s UK, etc etc want the people they advocate for get the best possible proven, scientifically justified medical care possible. And even raise money and sponsor research themselves!

I hadn’t realised just how much the LibDems were getting from Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Look at this. (Sorry it’s such a long link)
http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/?currentPage=1&rows=10&query=Ferring%20Pharmaceuticals%20&sort=AcceptedDate&order=desc&tab=1&et=pp&isIrishSourceYes=true&isIrishSourceNo=true&prePoll=false&postPoll=true&register=gb&register=ni&register=none&optCols=Register&optCols=CampaigningName&optCols=AccountingUnitsAsCentralParty&optCols=IsSponsorship&optCols=IsIrishSource&optCols=RegulatedDoneeType&optCols=CompanyRegistrationNumber&optCols=Postcode&optCols=NatureOfDonation&optCols=PurposeOfVisit&optCols=DonationAction&optCols=ReportedDate&optCols=IsReportedPrePoll&optCols=ReportingPeriodName&optCols=IsBequest&optCols=IsAggregation

Bloody hell, that's a lot of money!

Some questions on clinical trials. Some hopefully helpful background.

First off, lots of treatments make it into standard care without trials. Some forms of radiotherapy are a good example of this. With new equipment, and new forms of radiation, the pace of innovation outstripped the pace of trials. The benefits of new machines were so self evident that they were adopted without much in the way of trial data as it would less ethical to slow down and do the trials than to just adopt the new treatments.
I can see how the use of blockers might have become established under this kind of adoption. The kids are distressed by their puberty ergo stopping puberty is a winner. No need for trials. This would have been enforced by pseudo medical bodies like WPATH.

This approach can work and be safe, as long as there is consistent and adequate patient follow up, which we know just hasn't happened for gender questioning kids.

Secondly, receiving treatment as part of a trial is very different to being treated as part of standard of care. It is a much more controlled setting. There will be a much more defined approach to patient selection. Consent is way more detailed. Patients have to be fully and meaningfully informed of all potential harms and demonstrate that they have understood.
Each patient will generate tens of thousands of data points, some protocols follow patients for many years. All this data has to be made open for others to interrogate and analyse.

This isn't just sunlight this is M&S sunlight squared. If a study is even possible there will be no where to hide.

I don't think the example of new machines for radiation therapy is a valid analogy though. That's presumably incremental changes to an existing tried and tested methodology. Not prescribing drugs for a completely different condition and age of child than they would normally be used for.

And I doubt the former is so cavalier about record keeping and following up outcomes as seems to have been the case with puberty blockers.

For medicines, clinical trials are required before licensing.

However unlicensed and off-label prescribing is a thing, especially for children and rare diseases, and I can see how if clinicians are captured by gender ideology, and parents and children see what they want to see, how it has slipped into folklore.

Edited to say I was joining in with Poinsettia and Errol’s musings.

The story didn't hang around on the BBC news site for long.... no surprise there, though.

Well no, it's a news site - I wouldn't expect any story to stay on the 'front page' if there's no updates for it. The piece is still there if you do a search.

Yes for new medicines trials are needed to show the medicine is safe and effective in a particular condition. I expect puberty blockers were licensed on the basis of their use in precocious puberty. Their 'off licence' use for gender issues has I suspect spread via the process i outlined above and due to the total lack of long term follow up, the safety concerns have been slow to emerge. This is reallly poor practice in adults, but in kids it is off the charts bad

Yes, but there are much less important stories which remained visible much longer. It took long enpugh to appear in the first place!

My heart breaks for the poor trans children who will be forced to go through the wrong puberty against their will.

There is no "wrong puberty".

Your body goes through the puberty it needs depending upon your sex (NOT your "gender"). Interfering with it carries heavy penalties - physically, emotionally, intellectually and psychologically. There are children with osteoporosis and liver cancers (among other pathologies) as a result of this interference.

Janice Turner in the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/one-day-well-look-back-on-era-of-puberty-blockers-with-horror-07b36ldf7

https://archive.ph/9NqXU break the paywall🤞Stonewall will follow

I immediately thought the timing of these 2 stories was interesting. I was ill and resting all day, was listening to the radio and heard nothing about the puberty blockers story until I looked at MN.

I was sexually abused as a young child and, bc of therapy as an adult, have known many ppl who were somewhat regularly sexually abused as young children. Almost all of us hated our bodies, including our sex, from the time we were sexually abused (generally ages 3-7). I have no idea what percentage of gender dysphoric ppl we constitute.

What a fantastic article. It brings so many different bits together in one place.
This feels like the kind of article you could put in front of an Evan Davis type person (once a small seed of doubt had already been sown.. perhaps in his case by David Bell as suggested above) and they'll end up in tears afterwards at the realisation of the full magnitude. They may cling on to the idea that it's "only 100 children" but, even if that were the case, that's awful. Jimmy Saville hurt "only about 200 children" (or whatever number it was). But obviously it's not only 100 children, and the true scale of harm done will come out.

Speaking of mermaids - here’s their response to the news:

https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/nhs-puberty-blockers-policy-change-mermaids-statement/

Oh, no sure why only one photo uploaded! Here’s the second

The part that is making me feel both angry and sad is that the wording which started me on this whole journey has been removed from the NHS website about puberty blockers. It used to say that a) little is known about the long term side effects of puberty blockers and b) it's not known if thet effect the development of the brain. It also used to have a very odd take on whether or not effects were reversible ("GIDS advises"... GIDS is part of the NHS, so the NHS should either state clearly that they are or aren't reversible, on its own site.. or that nobody knows).
It was this advice that led to us saying no to our daughter when she asked for puberty blockers. Knowing nothing else about this subject at the time, I reached out in work to the LGBT community (I still value some of those conversations today) and joined the monthly forum for parents of "trans children". Listening to the parents, there was a mix of worry and hyperbole (suicide risk was often mentioned) but I honestly think that all the people I listened to cared deeply for their children and were not finding this easy.

Here is the wording I read when my daughter asked for puberty blockers.

Here is the wording now.

I've done screenshots of the relevant parts of the two side by side below.
The biggest takeaway now is that you'll probably be left sterile but don't rely on it for contraception. Nothing at all about brain development.
The latest update doesn't even acknowledge that the page has changed since 2020.
I hope the NHS is held to account for this. Yes, they were following "best practice" from WPATH but that is no excuse for bad medical "care".

 GenderlessVoid

@BonfireLady note that they've added a para about not going to unregulated and online sources...

Janice is spot on as always

i renain convinced that the tavi&portman nhs trust strong links to the Lib Dem’s - Paul burstow was chair when a lot of this went on and the allowance of vociferous & persistent lobbying of the trust by suzie Green played a huge part in this

How is your child now, @BonfireLady ? It must be hard to have this conversation.

I hope I’ve never said anything in anger that would have upset a parent like you. I don’t think I have, I’m on the side of children and parents, but it can get heated round here and it’s such a sensitive area!