There is a wealth of coverage on the final report of Hilary Cass. I’m planning a post with a summary of key points and a roundup of the international commentary.
Meanwhile, while I dig into the material, here’s the report itself https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
And an interview with Cass by the editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, Kamran Abbasi
Official reports based on careful data gathering and analysis such as this one will be extremely important in litigation in the US when victims of the child mutilation industry sue clinics, surgeons and prescribing doctors for malpractice. It's important that the results of this and similar reports are disseminated widely, so health care practitioners cannot say that they were unaware.
Keep up the good work Bernard. I've already emailed a bunch of Victorian MP's about this.
The RCH guidelines scored 19/100 on "rigour of development" and 14/100 on "editorial independence" in Table 6, page 129 of the Cass Review.
We need to advocate for a thorough independent review of Victorian gender medicine guidelines so vulnerable Victorian children and their families have access to care that's evidence-based.
The history of Western medicine has been littered with dreadful mistakes by (mostly) well intentioned individuals.
Two of the most infamous would include the Frontal Lobotomy and Thalidomide, however there have been many more.
In ‘defence’ of such disasters is the fact that they were from a time when there was no established mechanism to systematically investigate the safety and efficacy of the experimental therapy prior to unleashing it on the public.
It seemed that those dark days had been long-since passed, with the concept of ‘evidence based medicine’ that demands a strict protocol of trials and reviews to be satisfied prior to the acceptance of a new therapy – there must be EVIDENCE to support the intervention. There is no place for the zealots who have great conviction in their ‘product’ to unleash a new and untrialled treatment onto a vulnerable public.
The ’affirmative’ model of managing gender dysphoria (GD) in children and young people has taken us back to the past:
A group of ‘true believers’ with the dangerous conviction that ‘they know better’ have ignored the cautions built into our protective system and embarked on the use off-label therapies, irreversible sterilising and mutilating surgery in children with the highly questionable rationale that it would reduce mental distress and prevent suicide.
there's a lot of push-back against the Cass report from the trans community. I guess that's to be expected, but it's interesting to read their criticisms. For one, they say Cass cozied up to FL Governor Ron DeSantis and corresponded with the doctor DeSantis put in charge of the Florida evidence review. (for example see: https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/cass-met-with-desantis-pick-over ).
The criticism continues, saying that the methodology that disallowed studies that were insufficiently rigorous threw out too much good research. Moreover, that doing double blind placebo control studies on HRT is not possible (see this YouTube rant on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvygzbSIBxw ).
I guess we'd be too optimist to think everyone would just accept the Cass report. The debate is going to rage on. ... at least, though, there is now an open debate. No more forced consensus. No more simply dismissing GC views completely out-of-hand.
In an April 11 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on a law in Arkansas banning "gender affirming care" for minors, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) trans-male attorney Chase Strangio stated, "Arkansas believed that that government knew better than the loving parents in this case what was best for their minor children. That burdens the longstanding right of parents to direct the medical care of their children."
On April 12, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed SB 233, "Enacting the forbidding abuse child transitions act..." Gov. Kelly's veto announcement stated, "“This divisive legislation targets a small group of Kansans by placing government mandates on them and dictating to parents how to best raise and care for their children. I do not believe that is a conservative value, and it’s certainly not a Kansas value.
“To be clear, this legislation tramples parental rights...." The legislature will have its veto overturn session April 25.
Thus, progressive forces are calling for a right for minors to receive medical care that the Cass Review judges to have little medical warrant.
I hope you post your summary of the Cass Review soon. I intend to send it and the summary from the Society for Evidenced-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) to my Kansas legislators before April 25.
Official reports based on careful data gathering and analysis such as this one will be extremely important in litigation in the US when victims of the child mutilation industry sue clinics, surgeons and prescribing doctors for malpractice. It's important that the results of this and similar reports are disseminated widely, so health care practitioners cannot say that they were unaware.
Keep up the good work Bernard. I've already emailed a bunch of Victorian MP's about this.
The RCH guidelines scored 19/100 on "rigour of development" and 14/100 on "editorial independence" in Table 6, page 129 of the Cass Review.
We need to advocate for a thorough independent review of Victorian gender medicine guidelines so vulnerable Victorian children and their families have access to care that's evidence-based.
The history of Western medicine has been littered with dreadful mistakes by (mostly) well intentioned individuals.
Two of the most infamous would include the Frontal Lobotomy and Thalidomide, however there have been many more.
In ‘defence’ of such disasters is the fact that they were from a time when there was no established mechanism to systematically investigate the safety and efficacy of the experimental therapy prior to unleashing it on the public.
It seemed that those dark days had been long-since passed, with the concept of ‘evidence based medicine’ that demands a strict protocol of trials and reviews to be satisfied prior to the acceptance of a new therapy – there must be EVIDENCE to support the intervention. There is no place for the zealots who have great conviction in their ‘product’ to unleash a new and untrialled treatment onto a vulnerable public.
The ’affirmative’ model of managing gender dysphoria (GD) in children and young people has taken us back to the past:
A group of ‘true believers’ with the dangerous conviction that ‘they know better’ have ignored the cautions built into our protective system and embarked on the use off-label therapies, irreversible sterilising and mutilating surgery in children with the highly questionable rationale that it would reduce mental distress and prevent suicide.
there's a lot of push-back against the Cass report from the trans community. I guess that's to be expected, but it's interesting to read their criticisms. For one, they say Cass cozied up to FL Governor Ron DeSantis and corresponded with the doctor DeSantis put in charge of the Florida evidence review. (for example see: https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/cass-met-with-desantis-pick-over ).
The criticism continues, saying that the methodology that disallowed studies that were insufficiently rigorous threw out too much good research. Moreover, that doing double blind placebo control studies on HRT is not possible (see this YouTube rant on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvygzbSIBxw ).
I guess we'd be too optimist to think everyone would just accept the Cass report. The debate is going to rage on. ... at least, though, there is now an open debate. No more forced consensus. No more simply dismissing GC views completely out-of-hand.
The Cass Final Review was issued on April 9.
In an April 11 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on a law in Arkansas banning "gender affirming care" for minors, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) trans-male attorney Chase Strangio stated, "Arkansas believed that that government knew better than the loving parents in this case what was best for their minor children. That burdens the longstanding right of parents to direct the medical care of their children."
On April 12, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed SB 233, "Enacting the forbidding abuse child transitions act..." Gov. Kelly's veto announcement stated, "“This divisive legislation targets a small group of Kansans by placing government mandates on them and dictating to parents how to best raise and care for their children. I do not believe that is a conservative value, and it’s certainly not a Kansas value.
“To be clear, this legislation tramples parental rights...." The legislature will have its veto overturn session April 25.
Thus, progressive forces are calling for a right for minors to receive medical care that the Cass Review judges to have little medical warrant.
I hope you post your summary of the Cass Review soon. I intend to send it and the summary from the Society for Evidenced-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) to my Kansas legislators before April 25.