Tooth Fairy Science and Puberty Blocker Trials

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Article in the Critic by Helen Joyce

https://thecritic.co.uk/post-truth-medicine/

She's question the whole mountain of sand that presupposes the use of puberty blockers. I'm grateful for Cass but I wish she'd been a little bit braver on this.

That's a superb piece.

Thanks for posting. Do you know if the trial protocol been published?

Thank you for sharing. What a fantastic article.

When Cass wrote her report, she had to step back, and back, and back, to find a foothold that she could establish that was unarguable. She got it. From that one foothold, we can then start to begin to move forward to properly assess and question the whole ideology of 'genderism'. She could well have been more forthright but I'm not sure that she would have risked alienating people in the process - she has been absolutely cautious and careful, and that has paid off, imo.

We are post Cass, and the landscape is different now.

I think it's important not to underestimate the impact that Cass has had and continues to have - it's still rippling out through parliaments, organisations, and across the world.

Yes, there is noise trying to discredit her, but the people who are decision makers are largely accepting of her premises. Westminster, Wales, Scotgov, even the BMA.

Anyway. Thanks, will now read the article!

'Fundamentally, the hypothesis that arresting children’s physical development can treat mental distress doesn’t deserve to be dignified with a clinical trial of any kind. It’s an example of what Harriet Hall, a long-time proponent of better decision-making in science who died last year, memorably called “tooth-fairy science” — studying a phenomenon before establishing that it even exists.'

Spot on.

Still under development or going through ethics approval afaict.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/gender-dysphoria-clinical-programme/implementing-advice-from-the-cass-review/cyp-gender-dysphoria-research-oversight-board/

Tooth fairy science. Excellent phrase

What an excellent article!
Thanks so much for posting.

As for the proponents of gender medicine, they already believe in its benefits without evidence of benefit. There’s no reason to think that evidence of harm will change their minds.

I think this is sadly very true.

I really - I'm not sure if "enjoyed" is the right word - her article. It's very concise and the problem is, how do we get allegedly sensible, highly intelligent adults in positions of responsibility, to accept that the Tooth Fairy does not exist?

I think in Julie Bindel's Genderland David Bell talks about this and says he cannot imagine how you can do an ethical trial

Relativism: this idea that there is no actual truth has come out of Philosophy and the Arts and is making its way into the Sciences. I think the people involved will find a way to justify a PB clinical trial and call it ethical; I mean, an ethics board in the UK already allowed GIDS to run what they called a PB research project.

So many people, Cass included, have got it fixed in their heads that gender identity exists and can cause extreme mental distress to the point that warrants surgical and hormonal intervention on healthy bodies. If people who believe this are on the ethics panel then I think that in their minds a clinical trial will be considered a good idea because it might help some distressed kids who are genuinely ‘trans’.

I don't understand this. Haven't they already done this study at the Tavistok. Do they just intend on repeating it until they get the "right" outcome?

• a planned puberty supressing hormone study – being developed through a joint programme between NHS England and NIHR to help us better understand the relative benefits and harms of ‘puberty blocking’ treatments in children approaching, or experiencing, puberty. Subject to securing the necessary research and ethical approvals, the study is expected to open to recruitment by early 2025

I'm mostly interested in how they intend to exclude those children who would have turned out to be gay or lesbian adults if they'd been allowed to reach sexual maturity.

Up to now they seem to have viewed them as collateral damage.

Surely if they think surgical intervention is warranted in the case of this mental health problem why not others? There's that one, I think it's BIID now, and the rogue Doctor who amputated healthy limbs. All his patients were unequivocally thrilled with the results, which is actually more than you can say for GIDS patients. Why was he stopped? Well I know why, because it's insane. But a person who wants to be an amputee can actually become an amputee. Unlike a human who says they want to change their sex.

Subject to securing the necessary research and ethical approvals

I’m with David Bell in his scepticism that this could ever actually get through the ethics committee stage.

The only problem I foresee with that scepticism is that David Bell is a sensible man grounded in reality, he was one of the former staff members of Tavistock who has been trying to warn the public/NHS/govt about the medical scandal that’s happened.

Whereas, the people designing the research and the people on the ethics board may not be grounded in material reality and may in fact believe in gendered brains/souls/identities and that will skew their thinking with regards to the ethical nature of a clinical trial of PBs on kids.

And some of the people involved in the design and carrying out of a clinical trial (and involved in setting up the new regional centres for treating gender distress) are already steeped in gender theory and would see any further NHS research as an opportunity to bed in their theories and preferred treatment methods. It’s a queer-theory addled minefield that needs teasing apart and carefully reassessing from first principles before anybody can even begin to attempt to undertake normal and reasonable science or medicine in this area.

I sincerely hope that David Bell is proved correct in his scepticism but I’ve seen so many idiotic and dangerous things done in this area of medicine that I have lost all hope that sanity can prevail in this matter any time soon.

Any ethical trial would have to exclude any child with co-existent mental health problems, autism or ADHD or learning disability or a history of previous childhood sexual abuse. I suspect that there are very few gender questioning children getting to a specialist care referral level who DON'T have one of those factors in play.

Hoping that Hillary Cass review continues to have positive impact however. The Royal College of Psychiatrists announced today they are not planning to renew their Stonewall membership for instance. Cass was presenting in a very measured way at their conference this year.

They managed to get ethical approval previously. I wonder why he thinks this time it would be different.

Excluding all those comorbidities would make the results ungeneralisable to real populations. So it would be either unethical or useless.

What a good article. And I'm with those who can't see how on earth it will be ethical to put children into a trial that may leave them intellectually, physically and sexually impaired as well as likely sterilisation.

I have said this on another thread the WPATH leaks included a recording of a video conference between about 5 professionals. They were discussing the fact that not only could the children not give informed consent neither could their parents.

I can’t see ethically how any parent, let alone a child, would ever be in a position to give informed consent to take part in a trial testing puberty blockers.

Did they? When?

I agree it’s a risk, but ethics boards are not chosen by the trial designers.

This is a good discussion of the previous study that includes an overview of the putative justification for a controlled trial.

https://www.hra.nhs.uk/about-us/governance/feedback-raising-concerns/investigation-study-early-pubertal-suppression-carefully-selected-group-adolescents-gender-identity-disorders/

SnakesandArrows said Did they? When?

The above link may shed some light on that.
Concerns and complaintsConcerns raised by various parties:

• The study design did not provide a control arm to measure the effect of the treatment
• Recruitment to the study started before ethics approval
• Parents and children taking part in this study were not adequately informed of the risks of taking part
• Annual progress reports were not submitted to the REC for this study
• No interim or final report produced as stated in the original research proposal
• There was evidence that the study’s interim results were unfavourable, but that these had been downplayed