12 Comments

This is very encouraging news, particularly given the requirement that the investigation is 'an independent and headed by appropriately qualified and trustworthy experts who are NOT affiliated with the gender clinic'

The reality that a multitude of scientific papers confirm that the desistance rate of gender dysphoric children is of the order of 70-80% surely should ensure that children not get sucked into the irreversible vortex that is transition.

Expand full comment
author

I hope it is encouraging. Whether or not there is a genuine independent inquiry we can’t know yet.

Expand full comment
Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023

"Dr Stathis argued that if youth gender medicine were to be criticised as “experimental”, that label should also be applied to most treatments used by child and adolescent psychiatry because low-quality evidence was the norm."

I suspect most treatments do not sterilize the young person or commit them on a pathway to lifetime hormone usage which takes their body out of normal operating conditions (with increased mortality, heart disease, immune disease, bone density harm....etc.).

The evidence of benefit is shaky if at all there beyond anecdotes but the harm is significant. It's time to start walking this back, physicians....

why do they expect their evidence review to give anything that Sweden and NICE didn't get? They're reproducible, that's the whole point....they can actually start acting on it!

Kudos and gratitude to brave Dr. Spencer! Where are the rest of the clinicians and if you are one... how are you going to explain to people in 5 years why you weren't at her side right now?

Expand full comment
author

It’s hard to know what the true state of medical opinion is because people are afraid.

Expand full comment

One of the reasons that most psychiatric medications are used 'off label' and that there is only low quality evidence in children and adolescents is because they have not been tested in clinical trials. The reason given for that is that there are serious issues around informed consent from children and adolescents. For years the only medication that had been tested (for children and adolescents) in clinical trials was imipramine, an anti-depressant, used in the treatment of nocturnal enuresis. Not sure that that has changed but happy to be corrected. The issues around informed consent still exist.

Expand full comment

I cannot see that consent is an acceptable excuse. All cancer treatments in children have been proven in double blind randomised controlled trials. If they can do it with cancer drugs there is no excuse for not doing them for psychiatric drugs or puberty blockers.

Expand full comment
Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023

Dr Jillian Spencer is a hero and I hope Dr Reilly is correct about an upcoming review. Do you think it is the secretive review which the Australian referenced a while ago or a different one? Why are we kept in the dark about such important matters relating to our health system? That 2018 spike in Queensland is indeed intriguing. Does it have anything to do with legislative changes, I wonder, or more likely, the activism and publicity in the lead up to those changes? Wasn't Queensland going through a Gender Bender during that period? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/9868068

Expand full comment
author

The secretive review was not in Queensland. As for that blocker spike, we can’t know if it’s real. It might be an artefact of data collection.

Expand full comment

Thanks and apologies. Yes you did write in a different state and I didn't read carefully. My bad. As to the spike, yes it could be related to data collection. I suppose those providing the data under foi provided no commentary on any changes related to data collection . Usually such spikes are interrogated. Sometimes it seems like trying to get basic information on anything related to gender issues from official channels is like extracting water from a stone.

Expand full comment
author

In a less toxic field the gender clinics would publish their data & be open to questions about anything that looked odd. At one point, I recall, their system captured only prescriptions filled at the hospital’s own dispensary.

Expand full comment
Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023

In a less toxic field you wouldn't have to ask; they would provide an explanation for any odd data to ensure users interpret it correctly. Not unlike the way the AEC points out when, say, a question on the census has changed. But having said that, there shouldn't be any such thing as toxic and non-toxic fields when it comes to public data. I'd be inclined to interpret that at face value - that is, as a genuine spike - and work on that assumption and then let others correct it with any hard evidence. Sometimes you just have to smoke them out that way.

Expand full comment

If such an “independent inquiry “ is conducted, might this provide the RANZCP and the RACP with the opportunity to acknowledge the inappropriate capture of social science, which has had them bluffed ( along with AHPRA) , might I say, to their shame. Surely the colleges and the statutory body, (both ostensibly charged with training of medical participants and the protection of the public ( in this case, children) from inappropriate or dangerous treatments, respectively) would be expected to be central to a genuine inquiry. Alas, the ALP government made no change to it’s 2018 policy position ( of obligatory affirmation treatment protocol in minors) at the recent federal conference, so the political levers will probably stay unchallenged. It would be too ambitious to expect any change without a change of government. Come the revolution. Queensland could start things It would be a vote winner or a lot of hats will be eaten

Expand full comment