Streeting declares the puberty blocker trial 'safe'

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://archive.ph/CFzK4

'On Monday, Mr Streeting reiterated that he was not “comfortable” with the trial, which involves more than 200 people under the age of 16, but said there were significant “checks, balances and safeguards” that made it safe.

He told Sky News: “The thing I’ve had to continually weigh up is that for lots of people who have been through this sort of gender identity treatment, they describe it as life-affirming and life-saving. But there is an understandable degree of public anxiety and concern.

“The crucial reassurance is that not just anyone will be able to sign up to this trial. They will go through extensive assessment by expert clinicians locally that will be reviewed nationally, and every young person would need to assent.
“They’re not old enough to consent. They would need to assent, and they would <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/CFzK4/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/17/children-cannot-consent-puberty-blocker-trial-wes-streeting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">need the consent of parents.

“And so there are lots of checks, balances, oversights and safeguards and constant monitoring in a way that disgracefully wasn’t there before. That’s what gives me the confidence and assurance of knowing this trial is safe.

“There is a debate about whether this is the right thing to do. I understand that, and there’s one thing we’ve learnt about this particular area of policy is that we shouldn’t silence, debate, dissent, disagreement.

“So we’ll continue to have that, and we’ll continue to be subject to scrutiny and challenge.”

Mr Streeting admitted that the children who will be involved in the trial are “very young” and that the drugs are “very strong”.

But he claimed he had tried to take the “politics out of what has been an extremely <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/CFzK4/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/25/nhs-puberty-blockers-trial-repeat-tavistock-whistleblowers/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">difficult and sensitive issue”.

Despite the research going ahead, the Health Secretary added: “I think there are still big questions about how we ever ended up in this situation where these sorts of drugs were being routinely prescribed with and we’re continuing to get into that and looking.
“There’ll be another study looking at what’s happened to that cohort of young people over time.”'

'It is essential for the Government and the NHS to be guided by expert clinical advice and act with caution and care when it comes to supporting children and young people living with gender incongruence. The independent Cass Review concluded that the rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, and that there is not enough clinical evidence for the safe and effective routine use of puberty suppressing hormones to treat gender incongruence in under-18s. For that reason, this Government supported and extended indefinitely the ban on their use outside of research. Despite these restrictions, some young people are going to great lengths to source these drugs from unregulated providers, in the absence of scientific evidence.

The Cass Review recommended that a programme of research be established to underpin the design and delivery of NHS gender care. It specifically recommended this include a clinical trial into puberty suppression in young people with gender incongruence. This recommendation addresses the lack of evidence about the relative benefits and harms of this treatment option, particularly when provided alongside an updated model of NHS care incorporating holistic assessment and a comprehensive and tailored package of psychosocial support.'

'The study protocol is available on the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) website: fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR167530

The bar for a UK clinical trial to be approved is extremely high, with the PATHWAYS trial going through rigorous rounds of scientific, clinical, ethical and regulatory review. It was approved by an independent NIHR funding committee. The final protocol was subject to rigorous approval processes through both the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the Health Research Authority – including review by an independent Research Ethics Committee.

The Commission on Human Medicines also considered information on the trial in detail and made recommendations that were considered and adopted by the study team. With the strongest safeguards possible, a trial of this kind is the only way to build a sufficiently high-quality evidence base to inform decisions on the future use of this treatment option for this vulnerable and distressed group of young people.

Protecting and promoting the health and wellbeing of affected young people is the primary concern and there are strict eligibility criteria in place to join the PATHWAYS clinical trial. Parental consent is an integral component, with the parent needing to not only agree to their child’s involvement but also demonstrate sufficient understanding of the nature of the treatment, and what is currently known and unknown about its effects. Informed assent from the child will also be required. This will include the young person explaining in their own words to the clinician what the risks are and what they understand by those risks.

The only children to get to that stage will have already been diagnosed with gender incongruence for at least two years, will have received tailored psychosocial support, and will have been deemed clinically appropriate, within the context of the study, by both their NHS care team and the National Multi-Disciplinary Team. They will also have had to be assessed as being in stable physical and mental health.

Those young people receiving (or not receiving) puberty suppressing hormones will continue to receive other elements of routine support and treatment provided as part of newly established NHS Children and Young People’s Gender Services, whose practices have been shaped by the recommendations of the Cass Review. Participants can leave the trial at any time, at which point they would receive support in their withdrawal from puberty suppression as well as ongoing psychosocial support from NHS services.

Healthcare must always be led by evidence. Puberty suppression has been provided in the past with insufficient evidence, and young people have been left to go without the support and care that they need. This Government is determined to change that, and it is only through evidence-based research that we can determine the most effective way to support these young people. We believe that children and young people with gender incongruence have the same right to participate in ethically-approved research, and to receive evidence-based care, as any other group of individuals seeking the support of the NHS.

Finally, it is important to reiterate that gender incongruence is an internationally recognised disorder. It is defined in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision as “a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex”. It does not describe girls and boys experimenting with gender norms, which for many children is a normal part of growing up. These important differences are properly understood and reflected in the new model of care being provided by the NHS.'

Can we read the actual patient/ parent information sheets and the consent forms?
These have to be submitted to the ethics committee as part of the protocol.
Surely if those forms are accurate, how did they get through ethics? I just cannot get my head around this.
Informed consent is essential, so all the risks have to be clearly documented, read and understood by the parents.

Cross posted.
I am going to read the protocol documents.

Informed assent from the child will also be required.This will include the young person explaining in their own words to the clinician what the risks are and what they understand by those risks.

Well they lost me right there. What child of 10,11,12 will understand the implications of this medication? They’ll repeat words spoken to them without fully understanding the risks. And what weasel words are these? It’s ‘assent’ not consent?

Recently, someone who desisted/detransitioned told me that in online trans spaces the pressure is to go on the drugs early enough so you can ‘pass’ more easily and they’re told that CSHs won’t work as well if you take them when you’re older. This person is in their 20’s and they still didn’t understand the impact on fertility.

Cass did important work but I suspect even she didn’t wholly and fully understand the darkness of the online world and how vulnerable children are being manipulated.

A child cannot possibly give informed consent as to how they will feel in their thirties and beyond. They cannot possibly conceive of the complexities of adult lives and relationships and the feelings they will have at that point, it's fairyland to a child. This is wicked, in the actual sense of the word.

Women are not permitted to have a hysterectomy in their 20s and early 30s because they are told they might change their mind in a few years.

So how the hell are they treated as being unable to consent whilst we are being told children as young as 10 can?

Not only can a child not understand the risks, they should not be able to understand the risks. No child should understand what sexual function actually means - those that do will have been abused and will understand it as something they want to escape from.

James Esses on X:

The government has ignored our petition of 140,000 people calling for a halt to the puberty blockers trial. The response is empty rhetoric. If they won’t safeguarding children voluntarily, we will force them to. Watch this space. This week will be interesting…

nitter.net/JamesEsses/status/2018601630900355449#m

This all day long.
It just demonstrates how those with a sexual interest in children have been able to persuade too many medics into going along with their wishes to remove fundamental safeguarding from children.

The NHS is (yet again) proving to be a risk to children and completely failing to safeguard this highly vulnerable group from harm.

Can we start calling this “The Streeting Trials”?

It’s clear he is responsible for letting this go through. Once his name is permanently attached to it however, he may not be quite so keen

Noting Jess Ting, surgeon to Jazz Jennings, visited Epstein's Island and rec'd at least 50k dollars for research.

Does this response mean there will not be a debate? I thought when a survey got to a certain size of response that there had to be a debate? Or is their argument that the HOC has already had one so no need for another?

I received my formal response, to having signed the petition, this morning and it is full of ideological language such as 'sex assigned at birth and suggesting the concept of 'gender incongruence' is now an internationally recognised condition ( recognised by WPATH and its subscribers, no doubt)

It states that negative impacts have already been noted, but then goes on to suggest it is still looking for evidence of harms or of help. It seems to me as if one research goals is to find positive evidence that suppressing puberty is helpful in treating this 'condition'.

Maya has written about it in the Critic

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/february-2026/ethics-what-ethics/

Epstein? 50K dollars? Jess Ting - Jesting?

I feel sick.

It says they will.consider for debate.

If everyone mentions ‘the Streeting trial’ or ‘Streeting child experiment’ every time, it could help it come out more publicly that that’s what it is.

No votes for child experimenters.

Thanks @ArabellaSaurus I should have read more carefully. Feels like a fob off.

I saw when it was announced that it was reported that he did not want it to be called the Streeting Trial - which felt to me like a very strong argument for calling it exactly that.

I received my reply from the petition as well -

"We are following the expert advice of the Cass Review to establish a clinical trial ...."

There are plenty of experts who are saying this trial should not go ahead, so clearly they're only following the advice that suits them. 🤬

Thank you for the link to Maya's article, excellent as always, particularly about Streeting responding to 'anguished demand'.

I would note that the govt have been innundated with pleas and a Supreme Court Judgment to permit women their entirely existing legal right to single sex spaces, with evidence of their 'anguished demands'. There are many families where parents of and children with SEND have made 'anguished demands' for support, and many 'anguished demands' are currently being made to not push through the appalling 'SEND Reform' plans. The second group contain children who have made actual serious attempts on their lives in distress through lack of appropriate school provision, and who will do if the govt forces them back into unsuitable education by removing rights from parents.

The government for those children? And those women? Hearts of stone. Anguish can get to fuck. And you can bet any tragedies will come with much waffle, disguise and burying it from the media as much as possible, not rushing to provide better answers.

It's only these children. This one group. Any claims that this is just a compassionate, values driven thing is very, very obviously bollocks to anyone with half a brain. So wtaf is the agenda driving this and what money is involved?

Or would women suddenly get their rights back if a loud shouty movement of white, straight, able bodied, affluent and well educated men started peeing, threatening to rape and kill, and smashing Wes's windows on their behalf?

So essentially their justification for going ahead with the trial is that they can't know for certain puberty blockers are unsafe until they try them out on children. And it's ok to test potentially unsafe drugs on children because said children would be taking them illegally anyway 🤔

I can only assume the ethics committee that signed off on this is knee-deep in ideology

And it's only going to intentionally sterilise and possibly medically permanently harm a very small group of children. I nearly choked the first time I heard Streeting use that as an excuse. He actually thinks it sounds sane.

Yes, that's about right, you notice it it's the same sort of excuse the SNP are using to put violent male prisoners in female prisons, if we don't 'they're going to commit suicide'. 🤯