Why the NHS puberty blocker trial is appalling

[Soontobe60]

Stella O’Malley from Genspect telling it like it is - that a state endorsed trial of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric children should NOT go ahead.
the NHS are not walking into this nightmare blindly - there are enough experts out there telling them what will happen happen to these children if they’re given these life changing drugs.
https://x.com/genspect/status/1989896741358113127?s=61&t=gKvvk-rWmOlYFGMZN8QVvQ

Yes, and still better than the alternative.
One persons intollerable side effect is a life saver for a hundred others. Thats why we need data, research and yes, long term studies.

So your success metrics are also vague and difficult or impossible to measure or define? How do you define "long term happiness" and how do you propose that could ever be separately identified and traced back to a single cause without any other factor in that person's life affecting it? How would you measure it?

If these are your success metrics then presumably you accept that this experimental medical intervention is attempting to treat a mental illness rather than to remedy a physical malady?

Do you think these are the same success metrics used to gauge success of other medical interventions?

I am not sure if it is your intention but you do appear to be defending medical experimentation for the purpose of "treating" an indefinable condition in order to achieve indefinable outcomes. Nobody can define what trans is and evidently nobody can define what a successful transition is either.

I am also confused by your "decreased mortality" metric. The myth of increased suicide rates has already been exhaustively debunked by credible experts, so I am not sure of the relevance of this proposed metric.

Oh, so you are peddling the suicide myth/lie. That's disappointing.

Are you aware of the Samaritans' guidance on these matters and that what you are doing is dangerous and puts people's lives at risk?

Why would we be giving teenagers medicine for prostate cancer or urological injury 😵‍💫

You are putting wordsinto my mouth.
I did not mention suicide. Though it maybe a consoderatikn in partocular cases, even if it isnt on average. Mortality can be caused by treatments and/or condition.
I think long term happiness is considered in many treatments. Even some physically unnecesary ones regularly given comestically.

GnRH analogues are used to treat adults suffering from various hormone related medical conditions (cancer, endometriosis, to control ovulation as part of IVF) and to treat premature puberty.

However this is something completely different - here they are being used to potentially prevent healthy children from ever becoming sexually mature.

The question is not just whether the drugs do harm, but whether puberty prevention is something that should ever be attempted.

Then what is the basis for your assertion about "a hundred lives being saved for every one person with intolerable side effects"?

What are these lives being saved from precisely? Are you saying that being trans is a potentially fatal physical health condition?

And what data are you using?

Yes, I agree. We need data!!! We get data from studies. Long term, well designed studies. I think the only difference in our positions is that you don't think that this condition needs treating before puberty? Where as I am not yet sure.

what condition?

Wishing Keira Bell and James Esses best of luck with this- if regulatory bodies looking at drug trials can’t play it straight around reasonable requests for information then I hope the relevant tgovernment ministers will quickly get involved to get the info made public, and if those ministers won’t do that, then I hope that it gets kicked upstairs to the Health Sec.

Given the huge safety concerns here there should be lawful access to NHS records given retrospectively of which children got given puberty blockers by GIDS and how they are doing now. The idea that a drug trial literally experimenting on kids has surely passed out of reasonableness given the long term effects that people are experiencing.

Mtf trans with significant distress

You avoided my questions so I will take that to mean I was correct.

We cannot collect data on a condition that hasn't even been defined - if you want well-designed studies then that is the fundamental first step. We cannot use misinformation as the justification or starting point for studies.

You need to stop spreading dangerous misinformation.

We have other ways to treat distress that don't involve preventing people reaching sexual maturity.

For comparison, some people claim that their distress can be alleviated by amputating a limb - should the NHS carry out a study to assess whether this is effective?

I had a friend who was put on GnrHAs for late stage prostate cancer. He hated the side effects so much he came off them, quite literally choosing to die more quickly than suffer the medication.

medical experimentation for the purpose of "treating" an indefinable condition in order to achieve indefinable outcomes

To be fair to the pp, that is exactly what the NHS is proposing, and the government supporting.

I'm sorry for avoiding your questions, and no you dont get proved right by silence. I wanted to avoid quoting the medical guidelines in full for the use of these drugs. Perhaps, it would suffice to say that in many cases, they are approved in the uk because they have benefit over harm for 'hundreds' (many! Sorry for being imprecise) of adults.
What we need is evidence for efficacy in the treatment of mtf trans.
I agree difficult to define, but I trust that this can be done appropriately by med professions give care and oversight.
A moderate, careful evidenced based approach.

That is the crux of the matter. It sounds like you don't think that trans people suffer from a real condition that requires treatment, but many doctors, the NHS and the goverment do!

Respectfully - you seem to be talking about adults (as so many people do when promoting these "trials"). The rest of us are talking about experimenting on children with drugs.
Can you clarify how a 10 / 12 year old (even one not in the grip of a mental disorder) can give informed consent to the possibility of future infertility, future inorgasmia, impaired brain development and a host of other potential problems? How does that work?

No child is diagnosed as 'trans'. They may have a diagnosis of 'gender incongruence'.

I understand that some children suffer from gender incongruence.

I don't suggest they shouldn't be treated. I suggest they should have ample support, help, compassionate care, and investigation into the causes of a condition that involves disgust or dysphoria with the body, and should be treated appropriately with evidence based medecine that we are 100% sure will not harm them.

In the vast majority of cases, gender incongruence, and dysphoria, is resolved by puberty.

If it's a real condition that requires treatment, it's a psychiatric one. There is nothing physically wrong.

Are there any other examples of psychiatric conditions that are treated in this way - ie treatments for the body not the brain?

The only thing this trial can do is monitor the difference in health (over two years) of children not taking PB, taking PB for two years and taking PB for one year. Maybe learn something about drop out rates, but i thought it was already known that once taking PB, a child is less likely to desist?

Im still not clear if PB are given to children to give them time come to terms with their future development or have bodies that are less developed so that cross sex hormones have a bigger impact?

Yes, I agree its difficult because they are children( so parents must agree) , and for some their incongurence does not abate with psychiatric treatment or puberty.

Physical interventions for psychiatric disorders are not unheard of. But children! So its tricky. We need more evidence.

No, I cannot clarify but the young person and their parents can. I am simply asking for a trial to continue so we get more evidence.

and for some their incongurence does not abate with psychiatric treatment or puberty.

But thats the confusing thing about the use of PB.

Lots of children who present with gender incongruence before puberty don't after. So why suppress puberty as part of the treatement?

They are reducing the childs chance of desisting, aren't they?

The research base on which gender quacks rely is insufficient to proceed to human trials. It doesn't matter that we've had years of prescribing, what should be happening now is a far bigger trial in sheep than the one we've had, this time of longer duration & with more areas of investigation. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5333793/#sec0010

With watchful waiting, 80% desist.

But if you treat them, 99% will progress onto cross sex hormones and surgery.

Which suggests that 80% of children presenting with incongruence would be sterilised, and suffer all the side effects of missing puberty, and all the other potential side effects of hormones and surgery, in order to treat the 20% who would persist.

Even that 20%, evidence shows, will not have an improvement in mental health.