Is It Science or Child Abuse: Part II
by Greg Ganske
July 19, 2023
My johnkassnews.com article a year ago on gender dysphoria warned of treating minors with puberty blocking drugs. Since then many articles of a similar nature have appeared in various publications such as the Wall Street Journal. As awareness of the vast increase in medical and surgical castration in gender dysphoric minors has become public, some twenty states have passed laws banning hormone blocking drugs and gender change surgery in minors.
Predictably, the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups challenged these laws in court as Constitutional infringements of transsexual rights. Federal courts in Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, and Oklahoma have now temporarily, and in at least one court permanently, enjoined these state laws. These injunctions are heading to the Supreme Court.
The appealing groups, with the support of many medical societies, argue that the government shouldn’t infringe on the rights of children who have parental permission to proceed with these treatments. In fact, some opposite states are now saying that minors don’t even need parental permission to self castrate. They argue that treatment of these children is mainstream and that denying them treatment could lead these troubled youths to an increased risk of suicide. It is common when parents ask the gender clinic doctors if their child really needs to take the puberty blockers or have their daughters’ breasts removed and then be told they if they withhold permission their child will be more likely to commit suicide. With this dire threat, most parents succumb to starting treatment which leads usually to a transgender path in over 80% of cases.
This has now started a backlash by patients themselves when they are older. A California woman whose breasts were removed when she was thirteen because she thought she was transgender is now suing the doctors and hospital that oversaw the procedure. Her family was told, “It is better to have a live son than a dead daughter.” She says that her other mental health issues should have raised red flags, pointing to other medical studies that young girls’ mental health is not improved by transitioning. (‘Woman sues hospital for removing her breasts when she was 13”, New York Post, 6/17/2023)
Unfortunately, the judges in these cases have been relying heavily on the “consensus” medical opinion that denying a gender dysphoric child this treatment increases the chance of suicide. For example U.S. District Judge David Hale ruled that the Kentucky law prohibiting cross-sex hormone therapies and sex-reassignment surgeries in minors was illegal and said, “regardless of its stated purpose” the law “would have the effect of enforcing gender conformity.” He cited briefs “by all major medical organizations” in the country including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association that support “transgender medical treatment for minors.” He wrote, “These drugs have a long history of safe use in minors for various conditions. It is undisputed that puberty blockers and hormones are not given to pre-pubertal children with gender dysphoria.”
The judge is wrong. These treatments are given to younger children but he should also know that puberty can start at age 8 in girls and a year later for boys. The problem is not that these drugs are being given very often to those younger, though that is occasionally happening. The problem is that they are being given to early pubertal children so frequently. As I outlined in my earlier “Is It Science or Child Abuse” article, these are powerful drugs that can have lifelong effects. They are being used off label as there have not been controlled prospective studies on their safety for gender dysphoria in children and teenagers.
But let us address the big threat of denying treatment that parents are threatened with in their frequently all too brief consultations with the gender doctor. Are gender dysphoric children and teenagers more likely to commit suicide if they don’t receive these drugs and surgical treatments? Research shows that gender confusion resolves itself with counseling in at least 80% of gender dysphoric children who outgrow this problem with supportive counseling and care. However, in the past 8 years or so there has been an explosion of educators and medical professionals who are encouraging teens and preteens to take puberty blockers or cross sex hormones so that their body conforms more with the gender with which they identify. This, coupled with what appears to be a social media contagion, especially in teenage girls, is fueling astronomical increases in children and adolescents thinking they may be transgender.
An increased risk of suicide is widely reported in lay press and medical circles as if it is established fact. Students in medical schools are being taught this. This dire outcome has become dogma not to be questioned. And, yet what is the proof for it?
It probably would surprise many of the physicians of the endorsing organizations to learn that “the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as a medical intervention for adolescents who identify as transgender have never been subjected to a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) like the kind that is typically required for approval of new medications. (Claudia Haupt, et. al., “Antiandrogen or Estradiol Treatment or Both During Hormone Therapy in Transitioning Transgender Women.” Cochrane Database of Systemic Review, Vol, 11, No.11 (November 2020)
The randomized controlled trial (RTC) is the gold standard. Unfortunately, the problem with studies that instead use correlational designs is that they can’t determine with confidence that any relationship between receiving these drugs and later health outcomes is causal not just coincidental.
An example of this type of significant research defect is discussed in depth by Jay Green in “Puberty Blockers, Cross-Sex Hormones and Youth Suicide”, Heritage Foundation, June, 2022.
One of the most widely quoted articles claiming that adolescents who receive cross-sex hormones have a lower risk of suicide is by Jack Turban (Jack L. Turban, et. al, “Access to Gender-Affirming Hormones During Adolescence and Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender Adults.” PLOS ONE, Vol. 17, No.1 (Jan 12, 2022).
This 2015 survey of 27,000 American adults who identified as transgender were recruited through transgender support groups (in itself a possible source of bias) is not a representative group of all such adults. Subjects were asked whether they had ever sought cross-sex hormones, and then whether they had received them. Respondents who never sought cross-sex hormones were excluded from the analysis. The main comparison was between those who sought and received the hormones and those who sought but didn’t receive them between ages 14 and 17.
The biggest defect in this widely quoted article is an obvious one; instead of a randomized study, what were the reasons why some people were able to get the drugs while others could not? Most probably those with more mental health problems to begin with likely didn’t not get the drugs! The Turban study lacks information on mental health at the time the subjects sought hormone therapy. Those respondents who wanted the hormone therapy but didn’t get it very well had worse mental outcomes not because they didn’t get the hormonal treatment but because they began with worse mental health. Their underlying mental health problems may have predisposed to later suicide.
Another study by Turban and one by Amy Green and colleagues analyzes the mental health effects of adolescents receiving cross-sex hormones but also uses correlational research techniques that don’t control important variables. Without randomization of treatment, causal observations are impossible. Turban himself noted six other studies tracking mental health outcomes of teens who received hormonal treatments but that were flawed because “these studies did not [even] include a comparison group of adolescents who did not access gender affirming hormones.”
A recent article by Abbruzzese, et. al, in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, “The Myth of of “Reliable Research” in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed,” found three biases underlying the research of two influential Dutch studies touting the benefits of youth transition hormonal and surgical treatment: 1) only the most successful cases were included, 2) the “resolution of gender dysphoria” was due to “flawed questionnaires”, and 3) concomitant psychotherapy made it impossible to separate the effects of the psychotherapy from the effects of hormones and surgery. The authors condemn the tendency of clinics that are actively administering hormone and surgical interventions to present weak or negative results as “certain and positive.”
The fact that so many medical organizations have condemned the legislation banning transgender hormonal and surgical treatment can also be explained by the fact that some of the state laws have provisions that could result in the loss of medical licensure. This threat alone, regardless of their position on trans treatment, strikes fear in doctors. Another factor is that gender dysphoria treatment has become a very lucrative field. A spokesperson for Vanderbilt certainly wishes she had not mentioned publicly how lucrative these treatments are, literally millions of dollars. For a sense of how the sex change industry has become a multi-million dollar enterprise, read RealClearScience, “Oregon’s Castration Machine”, July 6, 2023.
It is unfortunate that politics has gotten involved in this issue. Physicians that are at academic centers are fearful of the consequences of their publicly disagreeing with the treatment of children with these powerful drugs, not to mention surgery which cannot be reversed. They fear for their careers and of being called transphobic. Christopher Rufo interviewed an anonymous physician who works in a major children’s hospital who revealed the transgender ideology of his institution. His many other colleagues choose to remain anonymous because they fear they would be demonized if they ask questions, (Rufo, “Thrown to the Wolves” City Journal, July 21, 2023.)
As a former Member of Congress I can attest that the majority of the political staff of medical organizations come from liberal Democrat Capitol Hill offices. Their ideology matches that of the LGBTQ community. It also matches the liberal academic leadership of most of the medical societies who are from institutions that have lucrative transgender sex change programs. I would also note that the AMA hardly speaks for American doctors as its membership is only about 18% of all of the country’s physicians.
As for the AMA, it rarely bucks Congressional liberal leadership on healthcare, i.e., its endorsement of Obama’s Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which is one of many positions that has caused it to lose membership. The AMA does good things but it has one over-riding legislative goal which is to protect its monopoly on the medical coding books and process, the CPT codes. I don’t have current figures but ten years ago it was making about $70 million per year by selling these coding books and also its Master file of doctors to insurance, pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare entitiies. The last thing the AMA wants is to take a contrary view on LGBTQ+ ideology that would anger liberal Congressmen and Senators who might threaten these revenue streams.
In summary, judges should take the positions of the medical organizations with a grain of salt. There are multiple factors such as other psychiatric illnesses like depression that contribute to suicide risk as well as substance abuse and access to a gun. Other countries such as at England’s gender clinic have not found the incidence of suicide differs in the chemically treated versus non chemically treated patients.
Dr. Jason Kolb summarizes all this in a letter to the WSJ, “As physicians we would never prescribe weight-loss pills for patients with anorexia or refer them for weight loss surgery. So why are so many in support of medications and surgery to treat patients with gender dysphoria? Both conditions are distortions of body image. Fear of being labeled transphobic, incomplete understanding of the risks and permanence of such treatments, and misinformation about the benefits are likely reasons. It is time to take seriously our promise to “do no harm” when it comes to patients with gender dysphoria.”
No amount of the sugar coating of calling this “gender affirming care” or euphemisms such as “top surgery” or “bottom surgery” can make these pubertal blocking medicines and treatment (especially surgery in those under 18) go down easier. The treatment of gender dysphoric minors with these drugs and body altering surgeries is a bitter pill indeed.
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Dr Greg Ganske is a retired plastic surgeon who cared for farmers with hand injuries, women with breast cancer and children with birth defects. He served as a Representative in Congress from 1995 to 2003. While in Congress he made many surgical missions overseas treating children with cleft lips and palates. He was active in many healthcare issues and wrote the preliminary bill that ultimately regulated tobacco by the FDA. He term limited and returned to medical practice in Des Moines in 2003. He currently enjoys his eight grandchildren, golfing, travel, and writing opinion essays for John Kass, Townhall, the Des Moines Register and the Wall Street Journal.
Comments 29
“Is It Science or Child Abuse”?
It is child abuse and I look forward to the guilty parties being charged for the horrible crimes they are committing.
These people are following in the footprints of Josef Mengele.
They’re merely following the footsteps of De. Josef Mengele.
The mutilation of children is rooted in the cult of death as a cosmetic (end the baby-bumps).
It all depends upon human greed. Well argued by Dr. Ganske, ” Another factor is that gender dysphoria treatment has become a very lucrative field. A spokesperson for Vanderbilt certainly wishes she had not mentioned publicly how lucrative these treatments are, literally millions of dollars. For a sense of how the sex change industry has become a multi-million dollar enterprise, read RealClearScience, “Oregon’s Castration Machine”, July 6, 2023.”
Thank you, Sir!
You are tackling an issue that is deep, and that many do not fully understand. This is largely due to the terrible reporting and lack of ethics by our news organizations and legacy media. It is also endemic of the corrupt bargain Democrats have made with the radical left that has created a Frankenstein that they cannot contain. The Republicans have created their own Frankenstein, the orange man currently under multiple indictments, but that’s an issue for another day. Today I will stick with the political whores that are the Democratic Party, the Congress, the DNC, our elite colleges, and the “mainstream media”.
These are the people, insisted on keeping businesses, schools, parks, churches, closed even though the data was showing the opposite. These are the same people that ignored the basic science of natural immunity, the clear data that states the average age of death from Covid close to 80, and that these poor souls were largely fat, grossly out of shape, and had poor nutrition and multiple co morbidities.
Doc, you said it, the AMA does the bidding of the radical left too. They hide behind science while simultaneously ignoring it. Look what they did with OxyContin. They ignored the effects and kept prescribing it. Taking the golf trips and other perks. Why they didn’t step up on Covid is beyond me.
Abigail Shirer has done some great work in this area and has been smeared beyond belief. That is what they do to you when you speak up against the establishment, left or right I may add. The left is much more powerful and much more corrupt and vicious though. They will defame you, take your livelihood from you, turn your family and friends against you.
What they are doing to the children with this gender affirming care garbage is criminal. We only need to look at Europe and Scandinavia who have gone down the learning curve in this and are cutting back on the mutilation of children and prescribing these harmful drugs. Doc, they are cutting back though, not eliminating all of it. Factual data needs to be more readily shared, as with Covid. There are so many lies that Insee people wearing masks when they are outside at the park by themselves, or in their own car driving alone.
Medicine has been corrupted, co opted, politicized, monetized, and weaponized. AMA is not out friend. Big Pharma, FDA, WHO, Fauci, Greg Gottlieb, Obama, Congress, none of them. They are not our friends. The Covid debacle showed what contempt these entities have for working people, the poor, especially the children.
Profit and power is all these people care about. The Democratic Party has been consumed by the cancer of greed. There was once a time that they could claim the moral and ethical high ground on many issues, but these days are long gone. They’ve abandoned labor, the poor, immigrants, the environment, the children, especially the “black and brown” people they proclaim to love so much.
I did not leave the Democratic Party, they have left me, and so many of us. If you truly have a curious mind and like to see actual data, factual reporting and really believe in personal freedom, I don’t see why anyone would vote for what passes as the Democratic Party.
They are willing to let kids be mutilated in order to keep the support of crazies who have seized the steering wheel of the party and are leading them off a cliff.
Google replies: Just can’t stop it can you? Your Frankenstein can be found when you look in a mirror! And as a wise atheist that face will never melt in that eternal lake of fire. You need a savior friend. Know any names? Don’t worry about 45, worry about yourself, consider yourself worse, that’s how it works and you know it.
Mr. Maitino,
Many of the readers of John Kass News disagree with much of what you write. Today, however, I think that you are “right on”. There are devils on both sides of the political aisle. Both, for example, are responsible for an unrealistic debt burden that our grandchildren will bear. I think that you are providing a valuable service if for no other reason than for letting us in on how the other side looks at things.
Oh! I get it! BLAH.BLAH.BLAH.
A fine article on a disturbing topic. I visited the Field Museum yesterday and embedded in one of the displays on a thousands-of-years-old tomb was text that stated (sorry I can’t remember the wording more precisely) gender wasn’t a given back then and not everyone in the tomb identified strongly as either male or female. There were a couple of other “agenda” remarks on other displays.
Apparently kids are now being told it’s stressful to think of themselves as “heteronormative” in the current environment. No wonder kids are confused, or at least being told they are.
I appreciate your article. Sadly, you’re preaching to the choir. Are any readers here supportive of the gender-transforming treatments described and can defend them?
“Gender ideology isn’t kids’ stuff” https://wallstreetjournal-ny-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=22442e39c_134ac62
Thanks for the heads-up about the museum, Pamela Pugh. I’d guess that museum curators now have about the same political diversity as NPR staff.
Your question to jkn readers was also shrewd. The indignant trolls who show up here are perfectly comfortable making their cases for open borders, open crime, and empty brains in the executive branch, but I doubt even they would dare speak up for the psychological and physical mutilation of children. That movement, now promoted by the “progressive” descendants of Joseph Mengele, is a real-life nightmare, which will only be slowed when the lawsuits begin to mount.
This, in turns, points back to jkn being a valuable refuge for generally-blocked opinion and sane discussion.
As a pediatric health care provider for 40 years (albeit as a Peds dentist) I interacted with kids daily. There were some with MH issues that in my demographic were able to be addressed with solid therapy. Sadly I lost several to suicide but I also lost about the same number to accidents. Kids do crazy things. I knew AMA was shrinking but 18%? Wow. That speaks to its true “representation”. Really an important voice? Good research, not the pseudo studies are needed. Not just pander to the loudest. I watch how this country has changed and wonder if we have lost our collective mind. We certainly have lost our value system. Fentanyl coming from China or Mexican cartels depending on who you listen to (yes I get the cartels functioning in the supply chain) is killing our young people. Our military dithers over pronouns rather than insuring we can defend ourselves. China sent spy balloon floating over important military areas and instead of blowing it out if the sky as soon as it crossed our borders (ostensibly to protect the citizens below) we allowed it to move unimpeded for days. Yet on 9-11 we were prepared to sacrifice two brave flyers (one a woman) to take down flight 93. Their planes were unarmed. Do you think they would have waited for open territory, no!
Leadership in DC and Illinois and Chicago is non existent. Governors and state legislators in fly over country have endeavored on this issue and others to enact legislation to slow this progressive attitude down. To get us back to solid values. Progressive IMHO is a term to mean anything goes.
We are in deep trouble starting with the occupant of 1600 Penna Ave.
“Our military dithers over pronouns…”
In the summer of 1964, SSgt W.T. Roebuck explained to the 84 recruits in our platoon that the function of the Marine Corps is to break things and kill bad people. Pretty simple concept.
The current Commandant has diminished the Corps to the point that we can’t even field our deployable MEU’s (Marine Expeditionary Unit).
When help was needed to evacuate Americans from Sudan and help with earthquake recovery in Turkey, we told everyone that they would have to look elsewhere. We did not have the ability to put boots on the ground where and when needed.
One of the ‘fixes’ implemented is to start putting females into Infantry units.
Teen aged men and women in the same foxhole. Now, there’s a sure-fire recipe for breaking things and killing bad people.
Berger (the Commandant) has spent the last four years dismantling the Corps, and the bad news is that the architect of this fiasco is the new Commandant selectee.
We don’t have money to deploy troops where needed, but if you’re stationed in a state that doesn’t allow abortions, the Corps will fly you and your family (all expenses paid) to a state that does allow them.
I don’t think SSgt Roebuck had abortions in mind when he talked about killing bad people.
The dithering is part and parcel of the plan to destroy our military.
Growing up, we all knew young girls that would have been called Tom Boys. They loved to compete with their brothers and neighbors. And they turned out to be terrific Moms. But if a teacher or doctor approached them with the idea that maybe they should have been a boy, that’s where confusion would happen in a young mind. Let young people grow, support them, and when they are old enough to make a life altering decision let them make it.
Great words.
Thank you
100%
All these studies, blah, blah, blah, blah, you’re either male or female. Your gender was chosen by God. Unfortunately most of society rejects God and traditional family values. The evil one spreads lies and mass confusion and people are willing to accept these dysphoria’s as normal. The “I don’t want to offend anybody” crowd is also compliant with this BS. It’s time to stand up for what is right and true. Those who harm these children and encourage this behavior will ultimately have to stand before God.
Enough already!
The lies and deception of the “trans” movement are terrifying. Anything done to a child that alters his/her sexual DNA is CRIMINAL, and IS child abuse. I hope and pray there will be a powerful backlash against this dangerous trend. Parents, stand up against this abuse!
So, Nazi Joseph Mengele would be proud of the barbarism that is being showered on our children. While the CDC, AMA, hospitals, doctors, big pharma and all the lawyers getting rich, our children commit suicide, need mental health, lose all confidence in the medical system, need reconstruction surgery to repair the monstrous carvings on their bodies and a multitude of other problems when they grow up.
I guess I am getting too old now and the years have flown on by with the LGBTQ+ and the liberal leftists taking control with a commitment to communistic/socialistic way to control our children’s future let alone causing a severe drop in our population in so many other ugly ways.
I believe I shall go throw up now so all I can say is, America, wake up….parents, stand up, get the nerve to say NO to interfering with our lives and attempting to control them.
God bless us all and thank you John Kass for this article written by Dr Greg Ganske, God bless you both.
Tom Adams
The UK,, Sweden and Norway have already ended giving children puberty blockers for the most part. We should learn from them that giving these drugs to children is not easily reversible and is wrong. https://www.thefp.com/p/when-gender-ideology-corrupts-medicine-tavistock
Has anyone considered that when you take the responsibility for a child’s ( I’m sure I’m probably using the wrong term here. ) sexuality away from the parents and society as a whole, and give the child total agency, that age of consent goes with it. Maybe that’s viewed as more of a feature than a bug to the groups pushing this agenda.
Also I wonder what percent of the adolescent population were gender confused before all the cool kids were doing it. I would think it was quite low.
Being blessed with a simple mind, there may be simple causes to seemingly complex problems. For many kids going through the torture chamber of middle and high school they simply want recognition and to be in the in-crowd. Not so long ago the tools to get there were leather, cigarettes and sneaking some of dad’s beer. These found-to-be-evil items are now in the rear view mirror. Kids then went to piercings, vaping, purple hair and tattoos. Now these are becoming passe and the gender thing has become the in-thing. Bring back cigarettes and maybe this fad will soon pass.
There’s comfort in a simple mind.
Not all doctors are Josef Mengele. I’m proud to know and publish Dr. Greg Ganske, former Congressman of Iowa who bravely asks the question: Is it child abuse? Of course it is. Thank you Greg
I’m a “G” in the LGBTQ+wxyz and a partridge in a pear tree alphabet soup. Please don’t lump all gay people into this radical trans “movement”. There are many of us who have pointed out and spoken up that when it comes to gender ideology, the Emperor ain’t wearing any clothes.
This seems like another case of the tail wagging the dog with a vocal minority of “activists” setting the tone and direction of the conversation. Don’t get me wrong: when you’re an adult man, feel free to throw on a dress and call yourself a woman. When you’re an adult woman, go ahead with your top surgery and call yourself a pregnant man with with a “bonus hole”. But stay the heck away from primary school kids! When sex ed is taught, (5th or 6th grade IIRC) I fully support acknowledging that there are differing orientations, but pumping grade schoolers full of puberty blockers is reckless when the more likely scenario is a boy who’s effeminate or a girl who is a tomboy, and both likely normal phases of adolescence. Before any medical intervention, both parents and children should go through intensive therapy.
Also, where are the stories about the people who regret transitioning? Give us the full spectrum of data, not cherry-picked snippets.
Another article on this subject:
https://www.thefp.com/p/trans-activists-killed-my-scientific-paper
Doctor:
I appreciate how well you explained e erything.
Thank you
We have a generation of people raised on drugs. If a child isn’t doing well in school, a parent will get a diagnosis of ADHD and receive the appropriate psychotropic drug to remedy what used to be called “being an underachiever”. No one can seem to explain why we have seemingly “normal” people load up guns and shoot up shopping malls. Has anyone conducted any research on whether these subjects were ever on these drugs? During the “mostly peaceful” “demonstrations” a couple of years ago there was footage of a young lady, about college age throwing a molotov cocktail and burning down a Walgreens in New York. Like I said, “mostly peaceful”. Any competent defense attorney can probably make a case for her being off her meds when she openly commited an act of arson. Many of these kids stop taking these drugs when they’re sent off to college by their parents. They simply forget or just don’t want to anymore. I know this from working in the college area of Lincoln Park. We had to cart many students to the hospital after they melted down without them. Its all about Big Pharma and its influence on society. This is why Fox dumped Tucker Carlson. He was the only “mainstream” commentator to call the media out on this. Now Big Pharma has kids in their crosshairs again by getting doctors to prescribe puberty blockers for children. Parents are now weaning their kids off of psychotropic drugs and ya gotta make up the money somewhere right? If you point this out you are labeled a “conspiracy theorist” or “anti vaxxer”. Oh, the shame. Silly me…
This is just a repeat of the same forces that drove the opioid crisis. Recall that we were sold that opioids were largely benign and in fact were the magic bullet for chronic (non-cancer) pain. Recall that doctors were skewered then for undertreating pain … we were told that there was an epidemic of untreated pain and doctors were negligent in their duties to provide comfort and care. Hey everyone jumped on board. Pain was a fifth vital sign – even though by definition that was a contradiction in terms. The Joint Commission – despite their denials – approved and encouraged such practices. In fact, if doctors did not treat the slightest pain they’d be dinged on their patient’s all important Press-Gainey satisfaction scores. It was all good … until it wasn’t.
Dr. Ganske is a surgeon so he should well remember the preoperative beta blocker fiasco. Beta blockers were “sold” as an inexpensive preoperative remedy to reduce the incidence of post operative heart attacks (indeed a major and not uncommon surgical complication) in non-cardiac surgical patients. This “breakthrough” cheap and effective prophylactic therapy was based upon mostly retrospective, observational cohort and small randomized trials i.e. low to mid-level quality evidence. So when the large double blind placebo controlled randomized trial (the POISE trial) was finally proposed to prove or disprove the efficacy of perioperative beta blockers, the trial could not be done in the US since here in the US, perioperative beta blockers were already determined to be the “standard of care.” Not surprisingly (or maybe surprisingly) and relevant to Dr. Ganske’s column, the POISE trial showed that perioperative beta blockers, rather than being beneficial, were in fact harmful.
So I agree that a RCT needs to be done for “trans” therapy. But the problem is analogous to the above scenario involving beta blockers. “Gender affirming care” is now the standard of care in the US. That means that it is unlikely an IRB (Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects) would ever approve such a study. Think about this. How would the consent be worded to point out the “facts” as understood by most of organized medicine and their “experts”: “hormone therapy and surgical alteration is the standard of care. In their absence the risk of suicide increases.” Who would sign such a consent if even such a trial was allowed to go forward? Like the large POISE trial, such a trial will likely be done outside of the US … if at all.
I suspect then, changes in practice will likely be driven, eventually, by large jury awards.
Thank you. Seldom, if ever, in a discussion of the opioid crisis, is the pressure that was put on physicians to prescribe opoids discussed.
My point – though admittedly round about – is the same thing is happening here in what I suspect will become a “trans” crisis. It is the exact same contagion.
Oh! I get it! BLAH.BLAH.BLAH.
Thank you Dr. Ganske! I hope the appeals of the judicial blocks on the 20 states that have passed laws get overturned quickly. Likely will again be taken to the Supreme Court. Glad some are speaking out on this permanent mutilation of young people. It is sad so many parents are getting duped by the greedy clinics! It is telling that in Europe, they have come out generally against it based on real review if the science. It is a progressive agenda to “create” transgender people from otherwise healthy children who are searching about their identity as persons, a normal process of puberty they are trying to hijack. The real science will come out mainstream eventually, but not before the greedy manipulators try to make their $$$ on it. I hope the children who have regretted it wind up suing those medical practices over what was done to them. I believe if you cannot vote legally, consume alcohol or serve in the military, you shouldn’t be allowed to get such treatment, even with parental consent. It is a decision that belongs to adults to make on their own when they are of age.