The New York Times and UK Guardian are the latest progressive institutions to scrutinize the safety of so-called ‘gender-affirming’ medical interventions.
Hello Guy. One question is whether or not very direct & serious warnings would dissuade distressed kids convinced by social contagion that the solution to their problems is transition.
Adjunct Associate Professor Quentin L Van Meter - Paediatric Endocrinologist, Emory University, Georgia, USA, president of the American College of Paediatricians is no amateur and states, unequivocally:
“To treat puberty as a pathology that should be prevented by administration of puberty blocking drugs is to interrupt a major and necessary physiologic transformation at a critical age when such changes can effectively happen. The physiologic event of puberty cannot safely be put off to a later date.”
And all the while the Royal Children’s Hospital Gender has a different view on gender blocking drugs, as per the RCH website:
“Puberty blockers suppress the development of secondary sex characteristics and are used for adolescents in the early stages of pubertal development. As they are reversible in their effects, should an adolescent wish to stop taking them at any time, their biological puberty will resume”.
I’m no paediatric endocrinologist but I’d put my money on Prof Quentin L Van Meter’s insights any day
It’s interesting that the RCH regards puberty blockers as safe.
These compounds have been used for decades in prostate cancer and breast cancer and though generally safe in the context of treating potentially fatal diseases there are known side effects.
Recently they have been proven to increase the risk of cardiovascular events.
Although this risk may be confined to the prostate cancer age group it is not necessarily so and it is possible that in young patients who receive these drugs we may find that with longer follow up their risk increases as well.
I wonder if the RCH and other Gender Clinics discuss this possible risk.
These people are medically normal so much more caution needs to be applied than in a patient with a fatal disease who has a much higher benefit/ risk ratio.
As far as I can determine the reduction in suicide risk has never been proven, so these medications have a huge potential downside and little if any upside.
Hello Vincent, I’ve noticed those urging use of puberty blockers refer to puberty as “wrong” or “irreversible”.
Hello Guy. One question is whether or not very direct & serious warnings would dissuade distressed kids convinced by social contagion that the solution to their problems is transition.
Adjunct Associate Professor Quentin L Van Meter - Paediatric Endocrinologist, Emory University, Georgia, USA, president of the American College of Paediatricians is no amateur and states, unequivocally:
“To treat puberty as a pathology that should be prevented by administration of puberty blocking drugs is to interrupt a major and necessary physiologic transformation at a critical age when such changes can effectively happen. The physiologic event of puberty cannot safely be put off to a later date.”
And all the while the Royal Children’s Hospital Gender has a different view on gender blocking drugs, as per the RCH website:
“Puberty blockers suppress the development of secondary sex characteristics and are used for adolescents in the early stages of pubertal development. As they are reversible in their effects, should an adolescent wish to stop taking them at any time, their biological puberty will resume”.
I’m no paediatric endocrinologist but I’d put my money on Prof Quentin L Van Meter’s insights any day
It’s interesting that the RCH regards puberty blockers as safe.
These compounds have been used for decades in prostate cancer and breast cancer and though generally safe in the context of treating potentially fatal diseases there are known side effects.
Recently they have been proven to increase the risk of cardiovascular events.
Although this risk may be confined to the prostate cancer age group it is not necessarily so and it is possible that in young patients who receive these drugs we may find that with longer follow up their risk increases as well.
I wonder if the RCH and other Gender Clinics discuss this possible risk.
These people are medically normal so much more caution needs to be applied than in a patient with a fatal disease who has a much higher benefit/ risk ratio.
As far as I can determine the reduction in suicide risk has never been proven, so these medications have a huge potential downside and little if any upside.