Apology for the Priesthood Ban / "March of Dimes Syndrome" / "Mission Creep" / "Spencer's Law"

[MustardSeed]

“If women want men to engage the way that men used to, they should stop being so defensive and fix the problems that are deterring men from relationships.“.( Last sentence. )

This seems like a poor deduction and a lame way to end an interesting article.  

[smac97]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

Quote

This study also revealed that male victims experience more severe violence than female victims.

More male victims are killed by their partners than females, really?  

I don't know about "killed."  The article states that "male victims experience more severe violence than female victims."

9 hours ago, Calm said:

I have no problem with the frequency of heterosexual domestic violence being the same, I have seen those studies for several years now.  But unless the women are all grabbing cast iron pans or knives and sneaking up on their partners or obtaining guns and staying out of arms’ reach while firing, I find it hard to believe the death rate is equivalent. 

I don't know how, or if, the article addresses "the death rate."

9 hours ago, Calm said:

I am curious about bi-directional domestic violence, whether it is about the same or more often women or men are the sole victims in their home (previous studies have shown that female violence is more often defensive than initiating, but they also show less severity…which this study challenges).  I wish there was more data offered in the study, the only ones I saw referenced still had females as the majority of the victims, but within 10% of males. 

PS:  why are you smac using the blog as your source instead of the actual study?  I assume cost, but it would be nice to see actual data and methodology since it is divergent from previous studies in the severity aspect.  Looking at that blogger’s choice of topics, I do not trust his interpretation to be as balanced as I would hope.

Yes, cost.  But I just looked around and found the article available here (click on the "Download full-text PDF" link to the right).

From page 15 of the PDF:

Quote

Higher rates of male than female IPV victimization in the current large-scale population survey appear to be inconsistent with the information provided by the police-reported data on IPV-related offenses. That is, police statistics in Canada (and other countries) consistently show that women are much more likely to become victims of IPV-related offenses than men. In 2015, four out of five victims of IPV-related offenses in Canada were women (79%), representing about 72,000 female victims (compared to 19,000 male victims; Burczycka, 2016). Women were more likely than men to be reported as victims of intimate partner homicide, sexual assaults, criminal harassment, and uttering threats in the intimate relationship. This clearly indicates the severity of IPV against women.

At the same time, research studies suggest that men hardly report being abused to the police, even if they experience severe IPV (Douglas & Hines, 2011).  According to the 2009 Canadian GSS data, female victims of IPV were three times more likely to report violent incidents to the police than male victims of IPV (Brennan, 2011). In 2014, 76% of male victims reported that the IPV had not been brought to the attention of police compared to 64% of female victims (Burczycka, 2016). Furthermore, male victims of IPV were more likely to mention that they were more dissatisfied with the response of the police to their abusive experience than female victims (Burczycka, 2016). The 2014 GSS also revealed that female victims of IPV were almost four times more likely than male victims of IPV to report having a restraining order enacted against their current or former spouse. These findings did not differ in any significant way from the 2009 GSS findings (Burczycka, 2016). Capaldi et al. (2009) found in a longitudinal study in Oregon, United States that mutually violent couples whose violence level increased on one occasion and who called police resulted in arrest of the male in 85% of cases, despite the records of prior violence by both parties.

Thus, the chiffre noir {the "unknown quantity"} of crime is a major and persistent problem of the police data.  Police statistics reflect only the crimes that came to the attention of the police, and these crimes are likely to be particularly serious. Victimization surveys capture many other assaults that did not come to the attention of police and thus provide a complementary aspect of IPV, especially with data on men’s victimization experiences.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[smac97]

New database shows extent of gender-affirming treatment in Kansas, nationwide

Quote

There are 93 juvenile patients receiving gender-affirming treatment in Kansas, 22 of whom have had surgery and 71 of whom are on puberty blockers, according to a new database launched on Oct. 8, 2024, by the national policy group “Do No Harm.“

“It’s far too easy for a child …  to obtain … prescriptions for the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones — or even to go through the surgical process,” Beth Serio, a spokeswoman for Do No Harm, said in a phone interview. “It’s a bit of a cliche now, but it’s a cliche for a reason that, you know, we don’t want a 14-year-old to get a tattoo, because we know that they cannot properly consent to what they are doing to their bodies. Unfortunately, we do allow 14-year-olds to cut off their healthy breasts because they’re so sure that they don’t want to be a girl anymore. “It’s all very much in service to this ‘woke’ ideology that’s very pervasive in the healthcare industry, and it’s kind of led us to where we are with this industry of (transitioning) children.”

The Do No Harm database shows that several facilities in the Sunflower State have been providing prescriptions and surgeries to minors seeking gender-affirming treatment.
...

Nationwide, since 2019, 13,994 children received sex change-related treatments; 5,747 sex change surgeries have been performed on children; 62,682 hormone and puberty blocker prescriptions were written for 8,579 pediatric patients, and at least has $119,791,202 made from sex change treatments performed on minors.

These “treatments” disproportionately affect girls, Serio said.

“The most common surgical procedure is a double mastectomy,” she said. “I think that’s not too surprising because we do know that in those early teenage years that, demographically, the majority of children who are experiencing gender dysphoria and want to go down the road of transitioning socially and medically tend to be young girls. Those demographics change in adulthood, but for children, we know that it is more common in females, so it’s not too surprising that the number one procedure is going to be a mastectomy.”
...

In all, 22 states have some sort of age limit on gender-affirming care for minors.

“With the launch of the Stop the Harm Database, Do No Harm is building on our mission to expose the dangers of experimental pediatric gender medicine and bring the practice to an end,” said Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. “This first-of-its-kind project provides patients, families, and policymakers with a resource that reveals the pervasiveness of irreversible sex-change treatments for minors in America. While this data represents the tip of the iceberg, this is the first step in holding the medical establishment accountable for participating in, and oftentimes promoting, predatory and unscientific medical interventions for vulnerable children.”

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

.

Edited October 23, 2024 by smac97

[smac97]

August 2024: ASPS statement to press regarding gender surgery for adolescents

"ASPS" is the American Society of Plastic Surgeons:

Quote

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) is a professional society that represents plastic surgeons in the United States and Canada. The ASPS was founded in 1931. The society is composed of surgeons certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery or by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada who perform Plastic and Reconstructive surgery. ASPS comprises 92% of all board-certified plastic surgeons in the United States and has more than 11,000 plastic surgeons worldwide.^[1] ASPS publishes the plastic surgery journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Its statement:

Quote

Many ASPS members may have read the recent article titled "A Consensus No Longer" published Aug. 12 by City Journal, which cites the American Society of Plastic Surgeons as the first major medical association to challenge the "consensus" of medical groups over gender surgery for minors.

The following is the ASPS statement in its entirety provided to the reporter prior to publication:

ASPS has not endorsed any organization's practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria. ASPS currently understands that there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty. This patient population requires specific considerations.

ASPS is reviewing and prioritizing several initiatives that best support evidence-based gender surgical care to provide guidance to plastic surgeons.

As members of the multidisciplinary care team, plastic surgeons have a responsibility to provide comprehensive patient education and maintain a robust and evidence-based informed consent process, so patients and their families can set realistic expectations in the shared decision-making context.

Guided by evidence

It's important to note that, as an organization and specialty guided by evidence, the Society's stance on this issue has remained consistent: More high-quality research in this rapidly evolving area of healthcare is needed.

To that end, ASPS efforts in this area include capturing clinical data on gender surgery procedures for adults and the development of practice resources to better aid members in implementing best practices in offering gender-surgery services when higher quality evidence is available. ASPS supports transgender patients' constitutional protections and right to dignity, privacy and humane medical care.

Further, it has always been the Society's position that members should be able to provide medical care without fear of government-sanctioned penalties and criminalization – and ASPS opposes any attempts at legal encroachment into the practice of medicine.

• "ASPS currently understands that there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria."
• "{T}he existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty."
• "{P}lastic surgeons have a responsibility to provide comprehensive patient education and maintain a robust and evidence-based informed consent process."
• "More high-quality research in this rapidly evolving area of healthcare is needed."

Informed consent.

Longitudinal data needed.

Etc.

Also this: Do No Harm Calls on Medical Associations to Follow the ASPS and Reject ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors

Quote

Earlier this week, City Journal published a statement from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons questioning the evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors. The ASPS told Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir that there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions” for minors and that “the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.” 

Moreover, the ASPS stated it is currently reviewing its initiatives to promote evidence-based gender surgical care, and noted it has not endorsed any medical organization’s standards of care regarding child gender transitions.

Do No Harm applauds the ASPS for choosing to follow the evidence, and urges other medical associations to do the same.

The efficacy of gender medical interventions for minors is not well supported by existing evidence, and these treatments carry unknown dangers and uncertain long-term effects. This is true of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and other interventions – not just gender surgical procedures.

Several European countries already recognize the experimental nature of “gender-affirming care” for minors and have limited children’s access to these interventions. It’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.

However, this can only happen when leading medical institutions acknowledge the obvious reality: that so-called “gender-affirming care” is grounded not in well-established science, but ideological zeal. 

It is incumbent upon all physicians to speak up for evidence-based care and reject dangerous treatments. It is not too late for the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, and many others to return to the truth.

Stanley Goldfarb, MD

Do No Harm, Board Chairman

 

• "The efficacy of gender medical interventions for minors is not well supported by existing evidence, and these treatments carry unknown dangers and uncertain long-term effects."
• "Several European countries already recognize the experimental nature of 'gender-affirming care' for minors and have limited children’s access to these interventions. It’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.  However, this can only happen when leading medical institutions acknowledge the obvious reality: that so-called 'gender-affirming care' is grounded not in well-established science, but ideological zeal."

 

Quote

Hear from Do No Harm’s fellows on the ASPS statement.

Do No Harm Senior Fellow Dr. Richard Bosshardt: 

“As a proud member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for over thirty years, a father of three, and grandfather of six, I have viewed the uncritical rush to embrace experimental gender-affirming care for minors with dismay and alarm. 

I have wondered and even asked on the ASPS discussion forums why my society, which should be in the forefront of discussions regarding transgender surgery, has not weighed in on this issue. Those pushing for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery on minors have grossly oversimplified something which is incredibly complex and poorly understood as though this is ‘settled science,’ when it is not even close.

I am proud that my society has finally stepped up and raised serious concerns about this practice. Plastic surgeons appreciate better than any other specialist the unique and daunting challenges of transsexual surgery. Even in the best of hands and ideal circumstances, these are among the most complex and challenging surgeries, with a high rate of complications, some of which can be permanently crippling and with no good data on long term results in minors.

Such operations in minors who have not gone through normal puberty amount to nothing less than childhood experimentation. Given the overwhelming evidence that should raise red flags about gender-affirming care, I hope that the courageous stance of the ASPS will be the first of many such organizations to do the same.”

Do No Harm Senior Fellow Dr. Travis Morrell:

“The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) deserves credit for being the first major U.S. medical society to simply acknowledge the obvious truth: we don’t have a solid evidence-base for the chest and genital surgery pushed widely by other American medical societies. 

Yet mastectomy is widely performed on 15, 16, and 17-year-olds, and sometimes even 12-year-olds, despite the lack of evidence of long-term help or safety.

The ASPS acknowledgement is the first crack in a dam – a crumbling dam of activism struggling to hold back a sea of evidence. Following evidence-based decisions of multiple European medical organizations, most practicing American physicians are hoping that their leadership will soon quit deferring to activists and instead make statements defending their patients with accurate assessments of the evidence.”

Do No Harm Senior Fellow Dr. Miriam Grossman:

“The evidence for surgically modifying the body to treat gender dysphoria, an emotional disorder, has always been remarkably weak, in minors as well as adults. In the absence of robust evidence of long-term benefit, how is it that surgeons have permanently disfigured EVEN ONE PATIENT, let alone thousands? Will the ASPS issue a warning to its members that youth who reject the reality of their sexed bodies need psychotherapy, not operations? While the ASPS’s new position, as expressed in their email to Mr. Sapir, is a major breakthrough, many questions remain.”

Do No Harm Senior Fellow Dr. Aida Cerundolo:

“Medical ‘gender-affirming’ care for children is the canary in the coal mine. The embrace of ideology and subjective reality over evidence and truth threaten the integrity of all of medicine, risking patient harm. As an increasing number of patients emerge from life-altering gender-affirming treatments realizing that gender was not the cause of their emotional distress, the harm will become impossible to ignore. It seems the ASPS recognizes this weighty decision and has chosen in favor of patient well-being by prioritizing evidence above all else.”

Do No Harm Patient Advocate Chloe Cole: 

“It’s bittersweet to see the gender industry now acknowledging the harm of cross-sex modification surgeries for minors. If they had recognized this sooner, it’s possible my detransitioned friends and I wouldn’t have lost our breasts and other organs. We cannot allow them to walk away as though they just realized the truth. This was always wrong – irreversibly harming children for profit is unconscionable, and it’s time the entire industry is held accountable for these grave injustices. Still, I’m relieved to see medical professionals finally moving in the right direction.”

 

• "Those pushing for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery on minors have grossly oversimplified something which is incredibly complex and poorly understood as though this is ‘settled science,’ when it is not even close."
• "{M}astectomy is widely performed on 15, 16, and 17-year-olds, and sometimes even 12-year-olds, despite the lack of evidence of long-term help or safety."
• "The evidence for surgically modifying the body to treat gender dysphoria, an emotional disorder, has always been remarkably weak, in minors as well as adults. In the absence of robust evidence of long-term benefit, how is it that surgeons have permanently disfigured EVEN ONE PATIENT, let alone thousands?"
• “Medical ‘gender-affirming’ care for children is the canary in the coal mine. The embrace of ideology and subjective reality over evidence and truth threaten the integrity of all of medicine, risking patient harm."

Again, some people, apparently including @Analytics, really really want to declare that there is a clear consensus on pediatric sex trait modification treatments (see, e.g., here).  I think there is ample evidence demonstrating that no such consensus exists.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 23, 2024 by smac97

[Calm]

7 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

“If women want men to engage the way that men used to, they should stop being so defensive and fix the problems that are deterring men from relationships.“.( Last sentence. )

This seems like a poor deduction and a lame way to end an interesting article.  

It is a traditional view that it is on women to change to make men happy.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

The article states that "male victims experience more severe violence than female victims."

And without the data, we don’t know what is severe by the study’s standards…anything that requires medical treatment of any sort, anything that leaves marks, anything that puts someone in the hospital, anything that makes an injury that lasts longer than a week or two to heal, anything that requires jail time, a life or death situation…who knows.  If it is broad enough, it may include the majority of incidents, which will not differentiate enough between frequency and severity imo.  If it is too narrow, it may not the extent of significant violence.

For example, if the question was “has your partner ever used something to hit you with, the answer would be yes if it was a baseball bat and yes if it was a pillow and yet the intent to injure is likely different with those two objects.  Also a question like “has your partner ever slapped you” (always wrong) does not differentiate between open and back handed slapping or a quick barely touching slap vs a full strength want to leave a lasting mark, maybe knock some teeth loose hit.

Edited October 23, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

these crimes are likely to be particularly serious

So that would indicate women are more likely to be the victims of the really severe kind.

I am not devaluing the lesser violence as any violence is wrong and even if something isn’t physically damaging, it can be traumatizing enough to destroy someone’s life.

[smac97]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Thus, the chiffre noir {the "unknown quantity"} of crime is a major and persistent problem of the police data.  Police statistics reflect only the crimes that came to the attention of the police, and these crimes are likely to be particularly serious. 

So that would indicate women are more likely to be the victims of the really severe kind.

I'm not sure we can, based on this article, draw that inference, not when the preceding statement that "research studies suggest that men hardly report being abused to the police, even if they experience severe IPV" remains in view.  This is a pig part of what the article describes as "the chiffre noir {the 'unknown quantity'} of crime is a major and persistent problem of the police data."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

57 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure we can, based on this article, draw that inference, not when the preceding statement that "research studies suggest that men hardly report being abused to the police, even if they experience severe IPV" remains in view.  This is a pig part of what the article describes as "the chiffre noir {the 'unknown quantity'} of crime is a major and persistent problem of the police data."

Thanks,

-Smac

This quote below means the “particularly serious” set of incidents came to the attention of the police with or without reports of the victim, perhaps through a doctor reporting signs of abuse or a dead body requiring police be called in.  I say it’s implied they are the more extreme part of the “severe” set as because of the previous sentences discussing the set of victims reporting, it appears to me they are setting apart “particularly serious” as a subset of “severe”, thus the more extreme crimes and not talking about the whole set…otherwise why the need to say “particularly”, instead of “severe” as they used before?  I may, of course, be wrong, but wanted to present my reasoning.  It may be just poor wording on the part of the author and they mean no differentiation to take place. 
 

Quote

Police statistics reflect only the crimes that came to the attention of the police, and these crimes are likely to be particularly serious. 

 

Edited October 23, 2024 by Calm

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Again, some people, apparently including @Analytics, really really want to declare that there is a clear consensus on pediatric sex trait modification treatments (see, e.g., here).  I think there is ample evidence demonstrating that no such consensus exists.

This is the type of comment that makes me question your basic reading comprehension skills. My position is simply that statements written by organizations such as the AMA or the American Academy of Pediatrics have more credibility than editorials written by political philosophers that are published on the Heritage Foundation’s website. 

It’s my understanding that if a kid walks into a pediatricians office and expresses concern about potential gender dysphoria and asks the pediatrician for advice, and if the pediatrician isn’t a world class expert on these topics already, his professional training indicates that he should bone up on the topic and that such research should begin by reading the AAP’s policy statement, Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents.

As an example of what that policy statement says, here is a quote:

 

Quote

 

Gonadotrophin-releasing hormones have been used to delay puberty since the 1980s for central precocious puberty.⁵⁶ These reversible treatments can also be used in adolescents who experience gender dysphoria to prevent development of secondary sex characteristics and provide time up until 16 years of age for the individual and the family to explore gender identity, access psychosocial supports, develop coping skills, and further define appropriate treatment goals. If pubertal suppression treatment is suspended, then endogenous puberty will resume.^20,57,58 

Often, pubertal suppression creates an opportunity to reduce distress that may occur with the development of secondary sexual characteristics and allow for gender-affirming care, including mental health support for the adolescent and the family. It reduces the need for later surgery because physical changes that are otherwise irreversible (protrusion of the Adam’s apple, male pattern baldness, voice change, breast growth, etc) are prevented. The available data reveal that pubertal suppression in children who identify as TGD generally leads to improved psychological functioning in adolescence and young adulthood.^20,57,–59 

Pubertal suppression is not without risks. Delaying puberty beyond one’s peers can also be stressful and can lead to lower self-esteem and increased risk taking.⁶⁰ Some experts believe that genital underdevelopment may limit some potential reconstructive options.⁶¹Research on long-term risks, particularly in terms of bone metabolism⁶² and fertility,⁶³ is currently limited and provides varied results.^57,64,65 Families often look to pediatric providers for help in considering whether pubertal suppression is indicated in the context of their child’s overall well-being as gender diverse.

 

 

If you disagree with this that's fine; it’s your prerogative. Feel free to submit a paper to a medical journal that explains your reasoning.

 My position is that I don’t have the time or expertise to read the 94 papers that the AAP referenced to support their position paper, read the rest of the relevant literature to see what they’re not considering, read your Heritage Foundation paper, and then make a nuanced evaluation of who does the better job of summarizing the research.

Since I don’t have the time or expertise to do that, I choose to trust the AAP, the AMA, and other such organizations. If you think the Heritage Foundation and the other sources you cherry picked are more credible, that is your prerogative.

My measured trust of mainstream doctors doesn’t mean in any way that I "really really want to declare that there is a clear consensus on pediatric sex trait modification treatments."

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I choose to trust the AAP, the AMA, and other such organizations.

I get that.  You previously:

Quote

Since my lack of time to thoroughly study this issue forces me to be agnostic, I think it is safe to stick with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues. 

You said this immediately after quoting a bunch of these organizations:

Quote

For example:

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:  <SNIP>

American Association of Family Physicians:  <SNIP>

American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists:   <SNIP>

American College of Physicians:  <SNIP>

American Counseling Association:  <SNIP>

American Medical Association:  <SNIP>

American Psychiatric Association  <SNIP>

American Psychological Association:  <SNIP>

Pediatric Endocrine Society: <SNIP>

To me, this looks like you really really want to declare that there is a clear consensus on pediatric sex trait modification treatments. 

I think there is ample evidence demonstrating that no such consensus exists.  I have provided extensive resources demonstrating this lack of consensus, as well as pretty strong evidence that these professional organizations are, to some extent, compromised in their assessment.  And you haven't responded to or otherwise meaningfully addressed these.

Of course, you have no obligation to.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 23, 2024 by smac97

[Calm]

 

18 minutes ago, smac97 said:

this looks like you really really want to declare that there is a clear consensus on pediatric sex trait modification treatments. 

consensus means a general agreement.  Since analytics is accepting there is disagreement out there, I don’t think he is saying there is a general agreement, just that the major medical pediatric and family organizations, the ones most likely to be at least familiar and at best specialists, are in agreement.  And it isn’t that he wants to declare it, he is expressing his comfort in allowing them to determine what is best practice.

You post a lot of articles, quotes, etc supporting a certain position.  Do you agree that means you really really want to declare that position as the best or whatever, iow, an emotional desire of your own?

Edited October 23, 2024 by Calm

[Analytics]

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I get that.  You previously:

You said this immediately after quoting a bunch of these organizations:

To me, this looks like you really really want to declare that there is a clear consensus on pediatric sex trait modification treatments. 

If you are trying to demonstrate that you possess reading comprehension skills, it is having the opposite effect.

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think there is ample evidence demonstrating that no such consensus exists.

Are you sure? For example, above I quoted from the AAP’s policy statement, which, as far as I can tell, is the most important policy statement of the group. It says, for example, that “pubertal suppression is not without risks. Delaying puberty beyond one’s peers can also be stressful and can lead to lower self-esteem and increased risk taking. Some experts believe that genital underdevelopment may limit some potential reconstructive options. Research on long-term risks, particularly in terms of bone metabolism and fertility, is currently limited and provides varied results."

I suspect there is pretty wide consensus about what I quoted in the preceding paragraph. Suspecting this doesn’t mean that I want consensus to be there on this point. It just means I’m noting it for what it is.

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I have provided extensive resources demonstrating this lack of consensus, as well as pretty strong evidence that these professional organizations are, to some extent, ideologically compromised.

Frankly, I think you are so ideologically compromised that you aren’t even aware of what mainstream thought even is on these issues. Cast the beam out of thine own eye.

 

[smac97]

@Analytics previously:

Quote

Since my lack of time to thoroughly study this issue forces me to be agnostic, I think it is safe to stick with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues. 

Just saw this today: Woke doc refused to publish $10 million trans kids study that showed puberty blockers didn’t help mental health (pertaining to this New York Times article) :

Quote

A prominent doctor and trans rights advocate admitted she deliberately withheld publication of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study on the effect of puberty blockers on American children — after finding no evidence that they improve patients’ mental health.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times that she believes the study would be “weaponized” by critics of transgender care for kids, and that the research could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who headed up the nine-year, $10 million study, told the New York Times she has not published the results because she fears they could be “weaponized” by opponents of trans healthcare for children.

• Informed consent. 
• Compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
• Ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care. 

When a "mainstream health practitioner" is A) also a "trans rights advocate" and B) is caught "deliberately" withholding publication of an obviously relevant - and taxpayer-funded - study because it contravenes her sociopolitical ideology, perhaps we ought to be circumspect in blithely "stick{ing} with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues."

Perhaps, given that "{t}here are a ton of nuances to understanding the totality of what the medical research indicates on this or that topic," we should give these matters further attention and discussion.

Perhaps ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care as to pediatric sex trait modification treatments is worse than we have thought, or would like to admit.

Quote

For the National Institutes of Health-funded study, researchers chose 95 kids — who had an average age of 11 — and gave them puberty blocking drugs starting in 2015. The treatments are meant to delay the onset of bodily changes like the development of breasts or the deepening of the voice.

After following up with the youths for two years, the treatments did not improve the state of their mental health, which Olson-Kennedy chalked up to the kids being “in really good shape” both when they started and concluded the two-year treatment.

However, the Times points out her rosy assessment contradicts earlier data recorded by the researchers which found around one-quarter of study participants “were depressed or suicidal” before receiving treatment.

My word.

Quote

The result also does not support the findings of a 2011 Dutch study, which is the primary scientific research cited by proponents of giving kids puberty blockers. That study of 70 kids found that children treated with puberty blockers reported better mental health and fewer behavioral and emotional problems.

Here is another article which addresses the 2011 Dutch study: The Dutch Protocol for Juvenile Transsexuals: Origins and Evidence

The abstract:

Quote

It has been a quarter of a century since Dutch clinicians proposed puberty suppression as an intervention for “juvenile transsexuals,” which became the international standard for treating gender dysphoria. This paper reviews the history of this intervention and scrutinizes the evidence adduced to support it. The intervention was justified by claims that it was reversible and that it was a tool for diagnosis, but these claims are increasingly implausible. The main evidence for the Dutch protocol came from a longitudinal study of 70 adolescents who had been subjected to puberty suppression followed by cross-sex hormones and surgery. Their outcomes shortly after surgery appeared positive, except for the one patient who died, but these findings rested on a small number of observations and incommensurable measures of gender dysphoria. A replication study conducted in Britain found no improvement. While some effects of puberty suppression have been carefully studied, such as on bone density, others have been ignored, like on sexual functioning.

Another excerpt:

Quote

An international study of puberty suppression—involving London and Boston as well as Amsterdam—was first mooted in 2005 (GIRES, Citation2005). The Boston clinic dropped out, but eventually an experiment along Dutch lines was begun in London in 2010. The entry criteria were “consistent with the protocol used at the Amsterdam Gender Clinic” (Viner et al., Citation2010, p. 6) and the outcome measures replicated those used by the Amsterdam longitudinal study (de Vries et al., Citation2011, Citation2014). From 2011 to 2014, 44 adolescents aged from 12 to 15 years commenced puberty suppression. Outcomes for all subjects after two years on GnRHa were thus collected by 2016. Preliminary results were presented to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (as HBIGDA had been renamed) in Amsterdam. In her keynote address, Carmichael observed that “our results have been different to the Dutch” (Carmichael, Citation2016). According to one presentation, adolescents after one year of GnRHa “report an increase in internalising problems and body dissatisfaction, especially natal girls” (Carmichael et al., Citation2016). Another presentation was also negative: “Expectations of improvement in functioning and relief of the dysphoria are not as extensive as anticipated, and psychometric indices do not always improve nor does the prevalence of measures of disturbance such as deliberate self harm improve” (Butler, Citation2016). These conference papers were not published as articles, following the typical fate of medical experiments that fail to produce positive results (Johnson & ****ersin, Citation2007).

Instead, the London clinic published an article claiming that “adolescents receiving also puberty suppression had significantly better psychosocial functioning after 12 months of GnRHa … compared with when they had received only psychological support” (Costa et al., Citation2015, p. 2206). The group subjected to puberty suppression were aged between 13 and 17, and must have included some of the 44 experimental subjects. This group comprised 101 adolescents at the outset, diminishing to 35 after twelve months. This high rate of attrition was not explained in the article. Anyway, the data showed no statistically significant difference between the group given GnRHa and counseling and the group given only counseling (Biggs, Citation2019a).

The full outcomes from the experiment were published following a protracted campaign involving publicity in newspapers and television (e.g. Tominey & Walsh, Citation2019), complaints to the ethics committee which approved the research (Health Research Authority, Citation2019), a Parliamentary question (Blackwood of North Oxford, Citation2019), and a judicial review (Keira Bell and Mrs A v Tavistock NHS Trust, Citation2020). Out of the 44 subjects in the experiment, all but one transitioned to cross-sex hormones. Outcomes were taken after 12 months of puberty suppression for all patients, and after 24 months for the subset waiting to reach the age of 16 when they could start cross-sex hormones. The headline finding was that “GnRHa treatment brought no measurable benefit nor harm to psychological function in these young people,” and gender dysphoria likewise did not improve (Carmichael et al., Citation2021, p. 20). This is all the more surprising because a placebo response would be expected in patients who had volunteered to pioneer this intervention in Britain (Kirsch, Citation2019). There was no disaggregation by sex, which is unfortunate because outcomes were evidently worse for natal girls than for boys (Biggs, Citation2020; Carmichael et al., Citation2016).

• Compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
• Ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care. 

Yeah.

Back to the first article:

Quote

Olson-Kennedy, the outlet points out, is one of the country’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to adolescents, and regularly provides expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures, which have taken root in more than 20 states.

 

When asked by the Times why the results have not been made public after nine years, she said, “I do not want our work to be weaponized,” adding, “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

She then flat-out admitted she was afraid the lack of mental health improvements borne out by the study could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”
...

Boston College clinical and research psychologist Amy Tishelman, who was one of the original researchers on the study, pointed out the obvious contradiction in withholding scientific evidence on the grounds that it doesn’t match an expected conclusion.

“I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there,” she told the outlet.

“No change isn’t necessarily a negative finding — there could be a preventative aspect to it,” she said hopefully.

“We just don’t know without more investigation.”

Quoth Analytics: "I think it is safe to stick with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues."

Quoth Nehor: "A lot of hysteria targeting a vulnerable population opposing the broad medical consensus..."

Quoth Nehor: "Or we could listen to the majority of experts who work with the people who actually have gender dysphoria and what seems to lead to the most positive outcomes."

Quoth Nehor: "Conspiratorial nonsense about how all the experts and professionals are lying to us will be the death of us all."

Quoth Analytics (quoting ChatGPT): "The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is widely regarded as a credible source on child health, including issues like gender dysphoria. Their guidelines are based on research and expert consensus, focusing on the child’s overall well-being and mental health."

Quoth Analytics: "The sources that you somehow believe are free of ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures claim this, of course, and everyone would agree that whether any given patient is likely to outgrow their feelings should be carefully considered on a case by case basis. However, there are valid reasons that the consensus of the mainstream medical community disagrees with you on this point."

I think there is ample room for heavily scrutinizing the "consensus" view being touted by Analytics and Nehor here.

Quote

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and a transgender youth expert, told The Post she was “shocked” and “disturbed” about the decision to withhold publication of such vital research.

“We’re craving information about these medical treatments for gender questioning youth. Dr. Olson-Kennedy has the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the US on the subject and is sitting on data that would be helpful to know,” she said.

“It’s not her prerogative to decide based on the results that she will or won’t publish them.”

She also wasn’t buying Olson-Kennedy’s rationale to hold back the study’s findings based on fear of backlash.

“It’s contrary to the scientific method. You do research, and then you disclose what the results are,” she said. 

“You don’t change them, you don’t distort them, and you don’t reveal or not reveal them based on the reactions of others. You report as scientists what you’ve learned.”

How often are these axioms being disregarded in favor of capitulation to ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care?

Quote

In a 2020 progress report submitted to the NIH, Olson-Kennedy hypothesized study participants would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time.”

 

Olson-Kennedy appeared to attempt to muddy the waters in her interview with the Times when explaining how her hypothesis didn’t pan out, claiming participants had “good mental health on average.”

She made this assertion “several times” despite saying previously that 25% of the study’s young patients were suffering with various mental illness symptoms before treatments began.

When pressed by the outlet for an explanation for the seemingly contradictory findings, Olson-Kennedy attributed it to “data averages,” of which she said she was “still analyzing the full data set.”

Oi.

Quote

In April, England’s National Health Service (NHS) disallowed puberty blockers for children following a four-year review conducted by independent researcher Dr. Hilary Cass, writing in her report, “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.”

Last year, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a leading Finnish expert on pediatric gender medicine, said in a newspaper interview that “four out of five” gender-questioning children will eventually grow out of it and accept their bodies even without medical intervention.

I think we ought to be discussing these things.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 24, 2024 by smac97

[smac97]

More coverage on the preceding news item:

National Review: ‘Trust the Gender Science That We Won’t Publish’

Quote

According to a New York Times article published today, Olson-Kennedy said the drugs did not lead to mental-health improvements. She offered the explanation that the children had been doing well before the study began, stating, “They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years.”

Progressives have insisted that so-called gender-affirming care for minors is medically necessary because the children with gender dysphoria will commit suicide without it. The activists deceive parents into accepting gender-related treatments for their children by asking, “Do you want a happy little girl or a dead little boy?” But now that the evidence doesn’t suggest that such drugs improve mental health, progressives claim that the children were perfectly fine before.

“'Do you want a happy little girl or a dead little boy?'”

Imagine a clinician asking that of parents (this coercive rhetoric is, it seems, hardly an outlier, as we have seen repeated instances of it even in this obscure thread), and then consider whether these parents might well be compromised in their assessments of the best interests of the child.

Quote

Certainly, the deliberate mischaracterization of research is dubious and troubling. But that isn’t the worst scandal: Nine years after receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health, the researchers have not published the data.

Why? Well, Olson claims that she plans to publish the data, but the team has been delayed due to politically motivated funding cuts. Aside from that lame excuse and immature finger-pointing, Olson-Kennedy also told the New York Times that the findings might support the legal bans on gender-related medical treatments, one of which is being evaluated by the Supreme Court this term. “I do not want our work to be weaponized,” she said, adding that “it has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

She further expressed worries that the study’s findings could be used in court to advance the argument that “we shouldn’t use blockers because it doesn’t impact them,” referring to children who consider themselves transgender. In other words, the data shouldn’t be released — at least not during this SCOTUS term — because they would show that critics of gender-related medical treatments are correct.

The data, if they ever are published entirely, would likely have political outcomes that Olson-Kennedy dislikes. But they would almost certainly have financial and professional consequences for her personally. Olson-Kennedy is the medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, which is considered “the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States.” According to a biography, she is a “national expert” and “has been providing medical intervention for transgender youth and young adults including puberty suppression and cross sex hormones for the past 16 years.”

 

• Compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
• Ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care. 

Yeah.

Quote

In a court document from 2023, she stated that “I have provided services for approximately 1,200 young people and their families” and currently had about 650 patients up to age 25. Olson-Kennedy is the president-elect of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health. Ultimately, she had a strong personal incentive for the study to arrive at a particular result — and without that desired result, she’s withholding the data. I’m tempted to reason that the evidence must be strong and contrary to what Olson-Kennedy prefers, or else there wouldn’t be an aversion to publishing it. 

That's a pretty fair surmise, IMO.

Another: Why are gender clinicians withholding research?

Quote

Unfortunately, Olson-Kennedy and her team are not alone in taking an “affirmation-only” approach to publishing research findings. Suppressing inconvenient data is a pattern in the field of gender medicine, which has long subordinated scientific research to political expediency. Researchers and clinicians in the field tend to work backwards from their desired conclusions (“gender-affirming care is safe and effective,” “the science is settled”), then tell patients, parents, policymakers, and the public what they think these audiences need to hear in order to fall in line. Forget the ideal of impartial scientific research. What we have here are clinicians and researchers acting as “agents of lawfare,” with one eye on the courts and one eye on their reputations. In the process, they lose sight of their patients.

Researchers and clinicians have decided — in advance — that “gender-affirming care” is safe and effective, no matter what the evidence shows. At the European Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Killarney, Ireland, in April 2023, researchers presented an array of discouraging findings, bracketed by statements like “as you all know, there are improved mental health outcomes following puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones” — even when the research being presented suggested the opposite.

Because researchers and clinicians perceive the political climate as hostile to the “life-saving” work they do, they appear to feel justified in suppressing research that fails to paint a sufficiently positive picture of their exertions.

• Compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
• Ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care. 

Yeah.

Quote

Just this summer, documents unsealed in a legal discovery process underway in the state of Alabama revealed that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) “interfered with the production of systematic reviews that it had commissioned from the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-Based Practice Centre.” Ultimately, researchers at Johns Hopkins conducted evidence reviews relating to 13 key questions in the field of transgender health, but published reviews addressing just three questions. The Economist concluded that “research into trans medicine has been manipulated.”

Sometimes, research findings get a glossy makeover before being presented to the public, like a 2022 study that reporter Jesse Singal summarised as thus: “Researchers found puberty blockers and hormones didn’t improve trans’ kids mental health at their clinic. Then they published a study claiming the opposite.”

At times, this approach is made explicit. At the US Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Denver, Colorado, last year, Kellan Baker dispensed public-relations advice to an audience of clinicians and researchers: don’t tell the public anything that might make them think twice about what they’re being asked to support. Avoid specifics, like the ages of patients and the details of interventions. Baker even advised against using the term “gender-affirming care”. “When [people] hear it,” he said, “they think ‘trans kids in the driver’s seat’”.

Quoth Analytics: "I think it is safe to stick with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues."

Another: Doctor won’t publish study showing no benefit from puberty blockers for fear it will be ‘weaponized’

Quote

Wednesday’s blockbuster report touched off an outcry on social media, with critics accusing the researchers and the agency of placing activism over scientific evidence.

“This is not science. This is activism and the NIH should not be funding it,” Camilo Ortiz, a professor of clinical psychology at Long Island University, wrote on X. “A real scientist accepts what the data show and has an allegiance to the truth.”
...
An NIH spokesperson told the Times that the agency leaves it to researchers to decide how and when to publish their results, although they are encouraged to do so.
...
While she said she intends to publish the results, she said her team has been delayed over NIH funding cuts to the project, which the NIH denied.

This stinks to high heaven.

Another: Fury as doctor refused to publish study that found puberty blockers do not improve children's mental health

Quote

A leading doctor has received backlash after she decided not to publish an anticipated report on the effects of puberty-blocking drugs over the heated discourse around the topic.

Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an advocate of gender treatments for teenagers, was expected to publish a taxpayer-funded study on how drugs could worsen distress in young people. The study is part of a $10million federal project on trans youth.

But she received sharp criticism as she delayed publication, writing: 'I do not want our work to be weaponized. It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.'

Harry Potter author JK Rowling was quick to weigh in with a sarcastic post on Twitter/X about the decision.

'We must not publish a study that says we're harming children because people who say we're harming children will use the study as evidence that we're harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children,' she wrote, sharing the New York Times' original report.

I think we should be discussing these things.

Quote

An early 2015 release shows £5.7mn allocated for a five-year multicenter study to 'evaluate the long-term outcomes of medical treatment for transgender youth'.

Several other peer-reviewed studies published with NIH funding from the award, R01HD082554, have found positive results from puberty-blocking drugs.

One, published in 2021, concluded that 'both implants are effective in suppressing puberty in early-to-mid pubertal youth with gender dysphoria'.

'These data may inform decisions about insurance coverage of Supprelin and/or Vantas for youth with gender dysphoria.'

I think we should be discussing these things, too.

More:

Fox News: Study showing puberty blockers do not improve kids' mental health not published for fear of being ‘weaponized'

Quote

However, not everyone involved in Olson-Kennedy’s trials agree. Boston College clinical and research psychologist Amy Tishelman, who was one of the original researchers on the study, told the paper, "I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there."
...

The United Kingdom's National Health Services (NHS) published findings from a 2020 independent review of gender-affirming care services for children and teens led by Dr. Hilary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Cass’ review concluded there was "no good evidence" for the medical push to transition children's gender, noting it had been "built on shaky foundations."

The report also found that puberty blockers did not help youth suffering from gender dysphoria feel better about their bodies, noting that evidence on the treatments' mental effects was insufficient.

Dr. Cass knocked Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s decision to delay publishing her findings, telling The New York Times, "It’s really important we get results out there so we understand whether it’s helpful or not, and for whom."

Cass, whose study prompted the National Health Service to prevent physicians in England to prescribe puberty blockers to kids due to lack of evidence of their clinical effectiveness, added that she believes Olson-Kennedy’s delay has left an impression among the public that puberty blockers improve mental health among youngsters. 

"{Dr. Cass} believes Olson-Kennedy’s delay has left an impression among the public that puberty blockers improve mental health among youngsters."

Catholic News Agency: Doctor concealed tax-funded puberty blocker study after it did not show mental health benefits

Quote

Olson-Kennedy did not respond to questions from CNA sent by email about whether withholding the evidence could jeopardize the public’s faith in research on these subjects or about what she would say to parents who want to access this information before making medical decisions for children who suffer from gender dysphoria.

The NIH also did not respond to a request for comment from CNA.
...
Olson-Kennedy is also working on a study with other researchers to analyze whether puberty-blocking drugs and other transgender hormone therapies impact bone development. Although they had planned to publish these results in 2019, those findings have also not been revealed as of late 2024.

Critics of puberty blockers for children are questioning the ethics and integrity of the research following this revelation from the Times.

“Scientific and financial integrity requires the release of taxpayer-funded research whether or not the researchers or others like the outcomes,” Jane Anderson, the vice president of the American College of Pediatricians, told CNA.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), told CNA that “individuals facing serious gender distress deserve better than the dissembling of researchers and the blocking of access to vitally important health information.”

“Negative results are oftentimes even more important than positive results when it comes to choosing appropriate patient care and treatments,” Pacholczyk added.

NCBC senior ethicist Joseph Meaney added that “it is highly unethical to conceal the results of a scientific study for personal or political reasons.” 

“Scientific research must be as objective as possible to increase our knowledge of medicine,” Meaney said. “Unfortunately, some scientists are motivated by other objectives than discovering the truth. Intuitively, one would expect that puberty blockers would not yield benefits because they artificially prevent the natural and health maturation of the human body.”
...

Earlier this year, doctors in the United Kingdom halted the use of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria after an independent review found that there was no comprehensive evidence to support the routine prescription of transgender drugs for minors with gender dysphoria.

Some studies have also unveiled major concerns about puberty blockers, including a Mayo Clinic study published earlier this year that found that boys might suffer irreversible harm from the drugs, such as fertility problems and atrophied testes.

A 15-year study conducted by researchers in the Netherlands found that two-thirds of children who wished they belonged to the opposite sex as adolescents ultimately became comfortable with their biological sex in early adulthood.

The Times: JK Rowling criticises US doctor for delaying puberty blocker results

Quote

Cass said that the delays by the American and British research groups had led the public to believe that puberty blockers improved mental health, even though scant evidence backed up that conclusion.

She told The New York Times: “It’s really important we get results out there so we understand whether it’s helpful or not, and for whom.”

The Cass review prompted the NHS to stop prescribing puberty-blockers outside a new clinical trial, after similar pullbacks in several other European countries.

SAN.com: Study on impact of puberty blockers on kids not published ‘over politics’

Quote

Research on the use of puberty blockers in children is limited and findings vary. A study by the Sax Institute Review in Australia found that positive mental health outcomes outnumbered negative ones. The Journal of Sexual Medicine concluded that puberty suppression may be valuable in managing gender dysphoria in adolescents.

Conversely, a four-year study in the U.K. found no evidence supporting the use of transitioning drugs for children. The American College of Pediatricians stated there is no long-term study demonstrating the safety or efficacy of puberty blockers.

Between 2017 and 2021, more than 120,000 children ages 6 to 17 were treated for gender dysphoria, according to Reuters. Puberty blockers haven’t received FDA approval for treating this condition.

Christian Post: Doctor withheld results of puberty-blocker study for political reasons: report

Quote

As The Christian Post reported in 2019, the federally-funded research grant that bore Olson-Kennedy's name altered the protocol and lowered the age for cross-sex hormones from 13 to 8.

Amy Tishelman, who serves as a clinical and research psychologist at Boston College and was involved in the original study, was critical of its results being withheld, according to the Times.

"I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there," she said.

"No change isn't necessarily a negative finding — there could be a preventative aspect to it," she also noted. "We just don’t know without more investigation."

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist who identifies as trans and specializes in working with young people who have gender dysphoria, denounced the decision to withhold the study's results, according to the New York Post.

"We’re craving information about these medical treatments for gender-questioning youth. Dr. Olson-Kennedy has the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the U.S. on the subject and is sitting on data that would be helpful to know," Anderson told the outlet.

"It’s not her prerogative to decide based on the results that she will or won’t publish them," Anderson added.

The news regarding Olson-Kennedy's study prompted attention from public figures on X, such as Elon Musk, who has been outspoken about his own son Xavier's struggles with gender identity.
...
The X CEO called Olson-Kennedy "evil" on Tuesday in response to a viral video during which Clementine, one of Olson-Kennedy's former patients, claimed she was put on puberty blockers at age 12 and testosterone at 13, despite noting her confusion followed sexual abuse. She also had a double mastectomy at age 14.

"Clementine, one of Olson-Kennedy's former patients, claimed she was put on puberty blockers at age 12 and testosterone at 13, despite noting her confusion followed sexual abuse. She also had a double mastectomy at age 14."

And we're supposed to just shut up and trust the experts?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 24, 2024 by smac97

[Analytics]

 

59 minutes ago, smac97 said:

• Informed consent. 
• Compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
• Ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care. 

When a "mainstream health practitioner" is A) also a "trans rights advocate" and B) is caught "deliberately" withholding publication of an obviously relevant - and taxpayer-funded - study because it contravenes her sociopolitical ideology, perhaps we ought to be circumspect in blithely "stick{ing} with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues."

One would think that if somebody were trying to hide information from the public, she might be able to find a better way to keep it hidden than to sit down with the New York Times and tell them all about it.

In any event, this has no bearing on whether or not mainstream doctors have a better grip on the research than Smac does.

59 minutes ago, smac97 said:

How often are these truisms being disregarded in favor of capitulation to ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care?

Are you suggesting that mainstream doctors and researchers are in favor of hiding results that don’t align with their alleged political agenda? If so, why are they putting so much pressure on Dr. Olson-Kennedy that she felt she needed to go to the New York Times to explain herself?

 

Edited October 24, 2024 by Analytics

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

One would think that of somebody where trying to hide information from the public, she might be able to find a better way to keep it hidden than to sit down with the New York Times and tell them all about it.

One might also think that when she has refused to publish the study's results, that constitutes "trying to hide information from the public."

One might also think that because the study was publicly funded, there is only so much obfuscation she can do about her refusal to publish.

One might also think that part of her proffered explanation for not publishing the study - funding issues - just might be a bald-faced lie given that A) the NIH has denied this claim, and B) she has elsewhere admitted to ideologically-motivated grounds for not publishing the study.

One might also think that the doctor was pushed into a corner about her refusal to publish the results, as refusing to publish and then refusing to explain why she is refusing to publish would have been even worse than actually talking to the New York Times.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

In any event, this has no bearing on whether or not mainstream doctors have a better grip on the research than Smac does.

A mighty tasty red herring.  I have never claimed to "have a better grip on the research" than medical professionals.  Rather, I have said, many times now, that I think we should be discussing these things.  You, it seems, do not want to be discussing these things, which is how we end up with contrivances such as above.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Are you suggesting that mainstream doctors and researchers are in favor of hiding results that don’t align with their alleged political agenda?

Some of them, yes.  Dr. Olson-Kennedy is the most recent example.  I have cited other instances of doctors and medical organizations doing things like this.

See, e.g., this article in the British Medical Journal: Gender dysphoria in young people is rising—and so is professional disagreement (which I previously cited and quoted here).  Some excerpts:

• "WPATH’s recommendations lack a grading system to indicate the quality of the evidence—one of several deficiencies."
• "Helfand ... noted several instances in which the strength of evidence presented to justify a recommendation was “at odds with what their own systematic reviewers found.”
• "{T}he strength of evidence for the conclusions that hormonal treatment 'may improve' quality of life, depression, and anxiety among transgender people was 'low,' and it emphasised the need for more research, 'especially among adolescents.'35 The reviewers also concluded that 'it was impossible to draw conclusions about the effects of hormone therapy' on death by suicide.  Despite this, WPATH recommends that young people have access to treatments after comprehensive assessment, stating that the 'emerging evidence base indicates a general improvement in the lives of transgender adolescents.'"
• "Those two statements are each followed by more than 20 references, among them the commissioned systematic review. This stood out to Helfand as obscuring which conclusions were based on evidence versus opinion."

See also this WSJ article (same link as above) :

Quote

But American judges need some way to evaluate conflicting scientific authorities—especially as institutions responsible for ensuring that medical professionals have access to high-quality research aren’t functioning as they should.

A case in point: Springer, an academic publishing giant, has decided to retract an article that appeared last month in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The retraction is expected to take effect June 12.

The article’s authors are listed as Michael Bailey and Suzanna Diaz. Mr. Bailey is a well-respected scientist, with dozens of publications to his name. The other author writes under a pseudonym to protect the privacy of her daughter, who suffers from gender dysphoria.

Their new paper is based on survey responses from more than 1,600 parents who reported that their children, who were previously comfortable in their bodies, suddenly declared a transgender identity after extensive exposure to social media and peer influence. Mr. Bailey’s and Ms. Diaz’s sin was to analyze rapid onset gender dysphoria, or ROGD. Gender activists hate any suggestion that transgender identities are anything but innate and immutable. Even mentioning the possibility that trans identity is socially influenced or a phase threatens their claims that children can know early in life they have a permanent transgender identity and therefore that they should have broad access to permanent body-modifying and sterilizing procedures.

Within days of publication, a group of activists wrote a public letter condemning the article and calling for the termination of the journal’s editor. Among the letter’s signatories is Marci Bowers, a prominent genital surgeon and president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an advocacy organization that promotes sex changes for minors.

Nearly 2,000 researchers and academics signed a counter letter in support of the article. Springer nonetheless decided to retract the paper without disciplining its editor. Springer initially asserted that the study needed approval from an institutional review board. But it quickly abandoned that rationale, which was false.

The publisher now maintains that the retraction is due to improper participant consent. While the respondents consented to the publication of the survey’s results, Springer insists they didn’t specifically agree to publication in a scholarly or peer-reviewed journal. That’s a strange and retrospective requirement, especially considering that Springer and other major publishers have published thousands of survey papers without this type of consent.

Anyone familiar with the controversy over transgender medicine knows what is going on. Activists put pressure on Springer to retract an article with conclusions they didn’t like, and Springer caved in. We’ve become accustomed to seeing these capitulations in academia, media and the corporate world, but it is especially disturbing to see in a respected medical journal.

Rather than appreciate the long-term risk to itself and the scientific community from doing the bidding of activists, Springer has instead agreed to evaluate and retract all survey papers that lack the newly required consent. If Springer follows through on its promise, hundreds of authors who chose to publish in Springer’s journals may have their research retracted.

The publications that support what they call “gender-affirming care” rely heavily on surveys. The U.S. Transgender Survey of 2015, for instance, has generated several influential papers. As it happens, the USTS didn’t inform participants that their answers would be published in peer-reviewed journals.

This kind of double standard runs through gender-medicine research. Papers advocating “gender transition” are readily accepted by leading scientific journals despite having grave methodological flaws and biases. Work that questions gender-transition orthodoxy stands almost no chance of being published in the best-known journals. Every now and then, an errant research paper slips past the censors, but should it prove significant enough to threaten the settled science narrative, retribution is swift and merciless. The researcher Lisa Littman learned this lesson in 2018, when she was widely attacked after publishing on the topic. Mr. Bailey and Ms. Diaz are learning it now.

The idea is to manufacture the appearance of scientific consensus where there is none. The pseudo-consensus then allows such American medical associations as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society to recommend body-altering procedures for children.

While many Americans have heard news about the wave of states passing legislation that curbs sex changes for the young, few realize that an equally fierce, and arguably far more important, battle is raging: the battle for the integrity of the scientific process. It is a fight for the ability to have censorship-free scientific debate as a means to advance human knowledge.

• "Mr. Bailey’s and Ms. Diaz’s sin was to analyze rapid onset gender dysphoria, or ROGD."
• "Within days of publication, a group of activists wrote a public letter condemning the article and calling for the termination of the journal’s editor."
• "Springer {} decided to retract the paper."
• "The idea is to manufacture the appearance of scientific consensus where there is none. The pseudo-consensus then allows such American medical associations as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society to recommend body-altering procedures for children."

Here's another instance:

Quote

Likewise, we now know that when the World Professional Association of Transgender Health commissioned systematic reviews of the evidence before publishing its latest standards, Johns Hopkins “found little to no evidence about children and adolescents” — so WPATH simply did not publish most of the reviews. And the Times notes that a British attempt to replicate a small study suggesting limited improvements was unsuccessful — but that result was “not made public” for years.

And here (same link) :

Quote

Even if academics were to try to publish results that the gender-transitioning medical complex dislikes, they would face the ideological block of medical journals. When Professor Lisa Littman published results suggesting a social-contagion element of gender dysphoria in adolescents, the blowback was so severe that the journal forced a republication with a new title and a commentary — even though no error in methods or results was found. Yet the Biden administration and medical-interest cheerleaders use this forced “correction” to pronounce the study “discredited.”

 And here (same link) :

Quote

The Times does not address the intriguing question of whether the Biden administration via the NIH had access to Olson-Kennedy’s withheld data showing that puberty blockers did not improve mental health — particularly when it was telling the Supreme Court that “overwhelming evidence establishes that” “treatment with puberty blockers” “directly and substantially improves the physical and psychological wellbeing of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria.” Of course, we know that the Biden administration already knew that Johns Hopkins found poor evidence, as HHS officials wrote that “[k]nowing that there is little/no evidence about children and adolescents is helpful.” But that did not stop the Biden administration from making its claim about “overwhelming evidence” to the Supreme Court in convincing it to hear Skrmetti.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to emphasize to the Supreme Court that “the Nation’s leading children’s hospitals” “offer [transitioning] to adolescent patients.” But we now know that at least University of Southern California, Northwestern, Harvard, and the University of California San Francisco (all of which participated in Olson-Kennedy’s research) found no evidence that puberty blockers improve mental health. One wonders how much other evidence has been suppressed for ideological reasons by medical providers and authorities who loudly adhere to “evidence-based medicine.”

So I think that some mainstream doctors and researchers are in favor of hiding results that don’t align with their ideological/sociopolitical preferences/agenda.  I think they are doing so because they are ideologically compromised, and/or because they are bowing to massive ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care.

Also: This study involves 95 subjects, and has cost $10 million dollars.  How much of that was spent as compensation to Dr. Olson-Kennedy et al?  Is it possible that Dr. Olson-Kennedy is not only ideologically compromised, but also financially so?  If she's made a fortune on "trans" medical care, testifying as an expert about it, running studies about it, etc., then might she have a financial incentive to not publish the results which, it seems, militate against the gravy train she's been on for quite a while?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

If so, why are they putting so much pressure on Dr. Olson-Kennedy that she felt she needed to go to the New York Times to explain herself?

Who is "they"?

Also, where are you getting the "she felt she needed to go to the New York Times" thing?  Is it in the article, or are you just making this up?

Is it possible that the New York Times went to her?  That the journalist asked her pointed questions about her publicly-funded study?  That refusing to answer questions from the New York Times about a matter of public concern could yielded a Streisand Effect-style result?

"It's not the crime, it's the cover-up" is a cliché, meaning that "{t}he act of concealing the evidence of a crime can be more incriminating than the crime itself."  Is it possible that Dr. Olson-Kennedy, having refused - on ideological grounds - to publish the results of her publicly-funded study, might have felt that refusing to talk to the New York Times would make her look even worse?

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Edited October 24, 2024 by smac97

[Analytics]

45 minutes ago, smac97 said:

One might also think that when she has refused to publish the study's results, that constitutes "trying to hide information from the public."

I may be wrong about this, but I have a feeling more people read the New York Times than whatever journal she may have published this in. If she’s trying to bury the results, she’s doing a terrible job of it.

In any event,  I’m on record as saying that "I think it is safe to stick with what mainstream health practitioners say on these issues,” and you think that this particular news story somehow proves me wrong. I don’t see how. 

45 minutes ago, smac97 said:

So I think that some mainstream doctors and researchers are in favor of hiding results that don’t align with their ideological/sociopolitical preferences/agenda.  I think they are doing so because they are ideologically compromised, and/or because they are bowing to massive ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care....

Relaying a few anecdotes of researchers allegedly being ideologically compromised doesn’t mean that mainstream medicine as a whole is ideologically compromised, much less that the sources you rely on (e.g. the New York Post, National Review, Daily Mail) are objective and immune from ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures.

45 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Who is "they"?

The ones pressuring her to publish the results, i.e. the mainstream medical community.

45 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Also, where are you getting the "she felt she needed to go to the New York Times" thing?  Is it in the article, or are you just making this up?

Is it possible that the New York Times went to her?  That the journalist asked her pointed questions about her publicly-funded study?  That refusing to answer questions from the New York Times about a matter of public concern could yielded a Streisand Effect-style result?

Whether she went to them or they went to her is irrelevant. She sat down with the New York Times and told them, “puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements."

 

[JVW]

I'd just like to drop in a very recent example of scientific research being stifled due to what basically boils down to a potential hit to a companies bottom line, but it could be restated in a kinder was as "political or ideological" differences. The two quoted articles are both from Maryanne Demasi's substack https://substack.com/@maryannedemasi . I'm not Smac so I'm probably going to suck and breaking this up and making it easy to digest.

Quote

Breaking: Journal Pressured To Retract Study On Covid-19 Vaccine Harms

A vaccine manufacturer based in India launched defamation proceedings against researchers who published a study that reported adverse events in people following covid-19 vaccination.  

The manufacturer also sued the editor of the international journal which published the study and demanded that the offending article be retracted immediately.

The peer-reviewed study

The study at the centre of the controversy is a post-marketing safety analysis (phase IV) of Covaxin, one of India’s homegrown covid-19 vaccines.

The researchers concluded that serious adverse events of special interest (AESI) after vaccination “might not be uncommon” and that the majority of AESIs in people persisted “for a significant period.”

Of the 635 participants involved, one-third reported developing AESIs such as new-onset skin disorders, nervous system disorders, menstrual and ocular abnormalities.

Serious AESI, such as stroke and Guillain-Barre syndrome, were experienced by 1% of participants, but no causal link could be established in the study.

The researchers called for “enhanced awareness and larger studies” to carefully examine the potential for long-term harms of the vaccine.

The study was published in the journal Drug Safety on May 13, 2024 after it was examined by two independent peer-reviewers and the editor of the journal.

The researchers called for “enhanced awareness and larger studies”...

Quote

Mayhem ensues

Within days of its publication, the government’s premier biomedical research organisation, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which co-developed Covaxin, quickly distanced itself from the study.

On May 18, 2024, ICMR wrote to the journal wanting a retraction of the article and of the “acknowledgement” the researchers made to ICMR for its support.

The letter criticised the rigour of the study – it said there was no control arm, there were no baseline values of participants, and that collecting participant data by telephone interviews created a “high risk of bias.”

These limitations, however, are well-known in post-marketing studies. In fact, the authors went to great lengths to discuss the limitations of the study in the article, as well as recommend larger studies to elucidate harms.

The ICMR did not respond to repeated media enquiries.

ICMR wrote to the journal wanting a retraction of the article and of the “acknowledgement” the researchers made to ICMR for its support.
...the authors went to great lengths to discuss the limitations of the study in the article

Quote

The lawsuit

In July 2024, the vaccine manufacturer, Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) launched defamation proceedings in the civil court of Hyderabad, India, against the 11 study authors (6 are students) and the chief editor of Drug Safety, Mr Nitin Joshi.

The lawsuit claimed the study was “poorly designed with a flawed methodology” and therefore the conclusions drawn about the safety of Covaxin were “unreliable and defective.”

BBIL accused the authors of making “irresponsible and misleading” statements that had “a malicious intent” designed to be “defamatory,” which in turn, led to unfavourable media headlines that “irreversibly damaged the reputation” of BBIL.

The lawsuit alleges that the unflattering and false claims about Covaxin, allowed BBIL’s competitors to “capture its customers” and hinder its business by “driving away potential customers and business partners.” It also alleged that the study was performed at the behest of competitors of the BBIL.

BBIL demanded retraction of the study, noting that the researchers should refrain from any further publications of their research on the vaccine and sought damages to the tune of 50 million rupees ($US 600,000).

No attempt was made by BBIL to approach the authors and discuss alternatives prior to suing them.

BBIL did not respond to repeated media requests.

"... the vaccine manufacturer (BBIL) ... launched defamation proceedings ... against the 11 study authors (6 are students) and the chief editor of Drug Safety, Mr Nitin Joshi." They are seeking damages of $600,000 and a retraction.

Here are the quotes of harm used in the reporting:
“irresponsible and misleading”
“malicious intent”
“defamatory”
“irreversibly damaged the reputation [of BBIL]”
"[allowed BBIL’s competitors to] capture its customers”
“driving away potential customers and business partners.”

It also alleged that the study was performed at the behest of competitors of the BBIL.

Quote

Sworn statement by authors

All authors have submitted a sworn statement under oath, refuting the allegations levelled against them.

It stated that there were no “nefarious objectives” in carrying out the study and that “it was conducted purely in the service of scientific enquiry.”

In the statement, the authors argued the study did not draw a “definitive link with the vaccine” and that this was stated clearly in the abstract of the journal article.

The authors called for further studies and said they couldn’t be held responsible for the way journalists reported on the study in the media.

They pointed out that it is standard practice to publish a “letter to the editor” of the journal to express a difference of opinion instead of lambasting the researchers in the media. BBIL chose not to take this route.

“This is nothing but an act of intimidation in coercing the [authors] to withdraw their article,” explained the authors in their statement.

It was pointed out that the ICMR is not a “neutral” government agency. It co-developed Covaxin and received royalties from BBIL for the sale of the product to the tune of 1.7 billion rupees ($US 20 million).

BBIL’s claim that it “suffered any loss of contracts for the supply of the vaccine” was entirely vague and unsubstantiated, did the authors.

In summary, they “rigorously followed the protocols of scientific investigation,” and stand by the integrity of the data, denying they were incorrect and flawed and therefore could not be deemed defamatory.

The journal caves

On Aug 28, 2024, Nitin Joshi, chief editor of Drug Safety, wrote to the authors to say a “post-publication review” had been conducted and that he now agreed with the criticisms of the paper.

Joshi, despite reviewing the study before it was published, stated that he was intending to retract the article because he “no longer has confidence in the conclusions.”

In private emails, all authors were asked to agree or disagree with the decision to retract the article, but those reasons would not be included in the public retraction notice.

In response, the authors implored Joshi to reconsider his decision because it violated editorial policies of the publisher (Springer) as well as COPE guidelines, a set of practices globally adopted for ethical publication of scientific papers.

“Removing/retracting the Article from the Journal without due process completely arbitrarily and unilaterally without even seeking any explanation from the Authors, suggests that the Journal is acting hastily,” wrote the authors

They also suggested to Joshi that BBIL’s lawsuit merely served to intimidate the journal into retracting the article and “muffle or stifle any type of criticism/research about the vaccine.”

The authors went on to explain that retracting the study would “harm the credibility of their research, resulting in irreparable damage and defamation that cannot be compensated.”

On Sept 17, 2024, Joshi confirmed in an email to the authors that his decision to retract the paper was “final.” He denied being pressured by the defamation proceedings.

“I would like to emphasize that the decision to retract is an editorial decision, informed by a further evaluation of your article after concerns have been raised. In doing so we believe that the journal has followed COPE guidance appropriately,” wrote Joshi in the email.

Neither Joshi, nor the journal’s publisher (Springer), responded to media enquiries and it is assumed that retraction of the article is imminent.

The defamation proceedings continue in the civil court of Hyderabad, India and the senior researchers are funding their own legal defence, as well as the legal defence of the student researchers.

So far, over 250 scientists, researchers, ethicists, doctors and patients have signed an open letter addressed to BBIL, ICMR and the editor at Drug Safety, demanding the lawsuit be withdrawn, and the study remain published.

The rest of this article that I'm not summarizing but is quoted above is good to read as well. Here's the follow up article posted a few days later.
 

Quote

Public support for the researchers was overwhelming. Over 600 scientists, researchers, ethicists, doctors and patients signed an open letter to support the study authors and defend academic freedom.

Two days later, however, the study was officially retracted - see my BMJ article.

Interestingly in this case, the entire article was also removed from the journal’s website. Normally in academic publishing, retracted articles are not removed from the published literature, but marked as ‘retracted.’

The retraction notice stated the journal editor and the publisher (Springer), decided the study “should be removed on public health grounds.”

Retraction notice in Drug Safety on Sept 24, 2024

But the journal did not demonstrate how the study contributed to a public health risk, nor did it respond to media inquiries.

Given the journal editor was also sued for defamation by the vaccine manufacturer, there is speculation that the journal removed the full study for legal reasons.

None of the study authors agreed with the retraction, nor were their reasons for disagreement, made public by the journal.

The above quote is only like 6 sentences, so I'm not summarizing or picking anything out of it.

I guarantee this is not an isolated incident. I imagine throughout human history in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries that there were people with lots of money throwing their weight around to move the scientific needle. I think anyone would have to be willfully ignorant or a huge corporate fanboy to deny this reality. The thing is, at this point in the game, the Covid vaccine isn't a heavily politicized issue, especially when comparing it against trans issues. If the Indian government and a manufacturer are demanding retractions on something that doesn't have a strong ideological backing. What is the potential for scientific meddling when people are treating an issue with religious fervor? 

Tying this into the trans medicine thing going on here. If trans people get all the medicine they want, there is a multimillion dollar industry. If trans people don't get all the medicine they want, there is still a multimillion dollar industry, just going the therapy route, or maybe to develop alternate drugs, or whatever. I can easily imagine if some studies started coming out and gaining traction that ended up putting a pause on hormones, puberty blockers, or sterilizing surgeries, the manufacturers of those drugs or companies performing those surgeries could sue for the exact same reasons noted above: irreversibly damaging reputations, allowing competitors to capture customers, and driving away potential customers and business partners.

In America, people with money and power have a lot of weight to throw around with lobbying. For example, did you know there were protests worldwide over the rollout of 5G? Not a peep was mentioned in America, where the 5G giants dwell and lobby politicians with millions of dollars a year. Trans started in America and I imagine the companies that produce all of the drugs that trans people use are American companies. They have a vested financial interest in these treatments continuing and expanding. And many of these companies are in bed with the government, media, etc. For example, if a newspaper receives 20% of its funding from a hospital and it publishes an article that could hurt the hospitals revenue stream... I'm speaking generally here, but I think you get the idea.

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Whether she went to them or they went to her is irrelevant. She sat down with the New York Times and told them, “puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements."

Which, if true, would contravene the "consensus" you have been touting for several pages now.

And which, if true, would also seem to justify my repeatedly-stated concerns about things like informed consent (or rather, it's absence), compromised assessments of the best interests of the child, longitudinal studies essentially absent (and/or, it seems, studies being suppressed/hidden), ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care, and so on.

Would you agree?

Also Analytics (quoting ChatGPT to support his position) : 

Quote

Q: What is your opinion? Is the AAP a good source for guidance on these issues? And should these decisions be made by doctors and parents with the input of the patients, or should State implement laws to protect children from their misguided parents and doctors?

A: The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is widely regarded as a credible source on child health, including issues like gender dysphoria. Their guidelines are based on research and expert consensus, focusing on the child’s overall well-being and mental health.

Is there an "expert consensus" on pediatric sex trait modification, or not?

Also Analytics: 

Quote

In the words of the American Counseling Association, "Gender-affirming medical procedures and mental health care are essential and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the United States Association for Transgender Health, and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health...Provision of affirming medical care is evidence-based best practice when working with transgender individuals.” This fact should be acknowledged.

Do you stand by this?  Or do you think there are reasonable grounds to question the existence and/or validity of this supposed consensus position?

We each think the other is ideologically compromised on issues associated with pediatric sex trait modification.  We differ in that your position seems to be predicated almost entirely on a supposed "consensus" of professional medical organizations (such as those you recite above), whereas I have been presenting pretty good evidence that this "consensus" is either contrived, and/or is ideologically compromised, and/or is not evidence-based, and/or doesn't really exist at all.

Putting aside personality conflicts, I think in the end we may agree more than we disagree.  I think we both care about the welfare of minors.  

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 24, 2024 by smac97

[JVW]

I also wanted to mention that at the heart of the scientific endeavor is critical thinking and the key to critical thinking is being exposed to opposing viewpoints and wrestling with them. In conversations in which one side is defending the "mainstream consensus" view and the other is providing an "alternative" view on the issue, I tend to default to the alternative view as being more full of critical thought.

I see Smac get hit a lot with "you're cherry picking what you're reading and what you're presenting." He is selecting specific articles to support his views, but that doesn't mean that he's ignorant or uneducated about mainstream arguments. It's impossible for him to cherry pick when it comes to a view alternative to the mainstream, because all of the mainstream sources that he's exposed to every day on every social media platform, on every news channel, every search engine, all espouse the "mainstream consensus" view. It is virtually impossible for him to live without being exposed to views that are contrary to his own.

I guarantee that the alternative person has read multiple mainstream, pro-trans articles in his life. I hesitate to believe that any pro-trans person has ever intentionally sought out to read an anti-trans article in their life. This is similar to the LDS church. I'm willing to bet that anyone who is a critical thinker in the church, or who has left the church, has read anti-Mormon stuff. But most people follow the mainstream LDS views and sees no need to shake things up. I think it is bad for the church that people shy away from researching opposing viewpoints and giving them serious consideration, and I think it's bad for society that opposing viewpoints on the trans issue are offhandedly dismissed in public discourse. (Don't try to tell me they aren't, you know as well as I do.)

On the other hand, someone resting snuggly in the mainstream consensus can easily spend their entire lives without being exposed to alternative viewpoints. A very easy, obvious example of this is Climate Change. "The science is settled" is the mainstream motto. Meanwhile there is still rigorous scientific debate happening behind the scenes. One could go their entire lives not knowing that there is still so much to learn about the nature of human-caused climate change, while the opposing alternative viewpoint is keenly aware of the mainstream messaging and arguments while digging deep to find research that improves his ability to critically think about the issue. As critical thinking requires wrestling with opposing views. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, JVW said:

I also wanted to mention that at the heart of the scientific endeavor is critical thinking and the key to critical thinking is being exposed to opposing viewpoints and wrestling with them. In conversations in which one side is defending the "mainstream consensus" view and the other is providing an "alternative" view on the issue, I tend to default to the alternative view as being more full of critical thought.

I take a somewhat different tack, which is to "default" to the mainstream/majority view, and then re-visit and re-evaluate it if it does not hold up.

Here, I was not particularly aware of pediatric sex trait modification treatments, except that there must be some sort of mainstream/majority consensus because thousands of minors have received these treatments.  Having considered the matter at some length, I have come to see all sorts of major challenges to the basic premise.  I have repeatedly posted a bullet list of my primary concerns:

• Comorbidities. 
• Informed consent. 
• Compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
• Irreversibility. 
• Sterilization. 
• Electively removing healthy body parts of minors. 
• Longitudinal studies essentially absent. 
• Lifelong medical regimens. 
• Ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care. 
• Social contagion risks. 
• Risk of financial devastation for the individual (and burden on society).

Note that none of these starts with "The prophet has said..."  or "The Church published a statement advising that..."  While my religious ideology informs my assessment and perspective on this issue, my position is my own, and is derived primarily from evidence, reasoning, legal implications, and so on.

1 hour ago, JVW said:

I see Smac get hit a lot with "you're cherry picking what you're reading and what you're presenting." He is selecting specific articles to support his views, but that doesn't mean that he's ignorant or uneducated about mainstream arguments. It's impossible for him to cherry pick when it comes to a view alternative to the mainstream, because all of the mainstream sources that he's exposed to every day on every social media platform, on every news channel, every search engine, all espouse the "mainstream consensus" view. It is virtually impossible for him to live without being exposed to views that are contrary to his own.

Yep.

1 hour ago, JVW said:

I guarantee that the alternative person has read multiple mainstream, pro-trans articles in his life. I hesitate to believe that any pro-trans person has ever intentionally sought out to read an anti-trans article in their life. This is similar to the LDS church. I'm willing to bet that anyone who is a critical thinker in the church, or who has left the church, has read anti-Mormon stuff.

Yes.  I've been on this board for 20 years, with one of the primary purposes being to listen to perspectives on the Church that partially or substantially differ from my own.  It has been a worthwhile exercise.  As I recently commented:

Quote

April of this year marked 20 years of participation on this board. I have found some value in coming here and listening to other Latter-day Saints who more or less feel as I do about the Restored Gospel and the institution that houses it.  I am an attorney by trade, and so daily work in an adversarial system, so I have also found value in listening to and talking with those who feel differently, including opponents and critics of my faith.  As Joseph Smith aptly noted: "By proving contraries, truth is made manifest."  Having spent the last 20+ years listening to and interacting with these critics and opponents, I have concluded that they have nothing to say that alters my overall assessment of the truth and reality of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We as Latter-day Saints have plenty of room for improvement and growth, and our critics are occasionally helpful in pointing out our flaws in behavior, in our understanding of the Gospel, in our assessment of the doctrines and the history of the Church, and so on.  But so far I have seen nothing from them that undermines or falsifies or negates the fundamental truth claims found in the scriptures and in the foundational narratives of the Restoration through Joseph Smith.

I have altered my position on a number of both religious/doctrinal and sociopolitical issues because I have listened to opposing views on this board and elsewhere.

1 hour ago, JVW said:

On the other hand, someone resting snuggly in the mainstream consensus can easily spend their entire lives without being exposed to alternative viewpoints. A very easy, obvious example of this is Climate Change. "The science is settled" is the mainstream motto. Meanwhile there is still rigorous scientific debate happening behind the scenes. One could go their entire lives not knowing that there is still so much to learn about the nature of human-caused climate change, while the opposing alternative viewpoint is keenly aware of the mainstream messaging and arguments while digging deep to find research that improves his ability to critically think about the issue. As critical thinking requires wrestling with opposing views. 

Unless those "views" contravene a nebulous "consensus" of authoritative parties, in which case we are supposed to shut our collective yaps and not question or scrutinize The Narrative®.

Put another way:  "When the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the United States Association for Transgender Health, and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health speak, the thinking has been done."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 24, 2024 by smac97

[Analytics]

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Which, if true, would contravene the "consensus" you have been touting for several pages now.

And which, if true, would also seem to justify my repeatedly-stated concerns about things like informed consent (or rather, it's absence), compromised assessments of the best interests of the child. 
Irreversibility, longitudinal studies essentially absent (and/or, it seems, studies being suppressed/hidden), ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care, and so on.

Would you agree?

On your parenthetical point, I’ll again point out that when somebody publicizes the results of a study in the New York Times, they aren’t suppressing it or hiding it.

Regarding your list of “concerns”, I still believe they are based on premises that misrepresent the vast majority of clinical interactions people have in doctor offices. 

Regarding the effect that this study has upon the consensus of what treatment guidelines should say, I’ll leave that in the hands of the doctors. 

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Is there an "expert consensus" on pediatric sex trait modification, or not?

I typed “pediatric sex trait modification” into Google scholar, and zero articles came up. 

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Do you stand by this?  Or do you think there are reasonable grounds to question the existence and/or validity of this supposed consensus position?

Yes, I stand by my assertion that the American Counseling Association said what I quoted them as saying.

I do not think there is reasonable grounds to question the existence of the consensus opinion. And I don’t think this one very brief summary of one study invalidates all of the research and clinical experience the consensus is based on. Quoting from the NYT article:

Quote

Dr. Tishelman also noted that, even if the drugs did not lead to psychological improvements, they may have prevented some of the children from getting worse. “No change isn’t necessarily a negative finding — there could be a preventative aspect to it,” she said. “We just don’t know without more investigation.”

The fact that on aggregate, the psychological wellbeing of these 98 people didn’t get better because of this drug doesn’t tell us everything there is to know. What would have happened if they didn’t take them? I don’t know.

Again from the New York Times:

Quote

But many other papers have been published from the wider N.I.H. project, including a 2023 study of older transgender and nonbinary adolescents who took estrogen or testosterone to aid their gender transition. After two years on hormones, the volunteers showed improvements in life and body satisfaction, and patients taking testosterone showed declines in depression and anxiety.

Why aren’t you talking about that study? It’s clear you only focus on things that support your ideological position. 

Quote

Dr. Olson-Kennedy noted that doctors’ clinical experience was often undervalued in discussions of research. She has prescribed puberty blockers and hormonal treatments to transgender children and adolescents for 17 years, she said, and has observed how profoundly beneficial they can be.

Although the N.I.H. studies are large, she said, “these are minuscule compared to the amount of people that we’ve taken care of.”

When you put everything into context, including the hundreds of studies and clinical experience the consensus positions were based on, I don’t know how much this study moves the needle.

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

We each think the other is ideologically compromised on issues associated with pediatric sex trait modification.

To the extent I have an ideology here, it goes back to the actuarial code of professional conduct. One of the most fundamental things in my profession is that “an Actuary shall perform Actuarial Services only when the Actuary is qualified to do so.” While I wouldn’t say that debating the efficacy of medical treatments on a message board is technically an Actuarial Service, it is adjacent to that--actuaries have a seat at the table when it comes to creating the evidence-based care guidelines that are used for determining what health insurance will and will not cover.

So from my perspective, you have the luxury of stating your position on these topics on purely ideological grounds, while I'm hindered by my professional obligation to refrain from commenting on things that are outside of my qualifications. Is only offering professional opinions when you are qualified to do so an ideology of mine? I guess.

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

We differ in that your position seems to be predicated almost entirely on a supposed "consensus" of professional medical organizations (such as those you recite above)..., whereas I have been presenting pretty good evidence that this "consensus" is either contrived, and/or is ideologically compromised, and/or is not evidence-based, and/or doesn't really exist at all.

Actually, my position is that I’m not qualified to evaluate the nuances of the medical research on these topics so personally, I am agnostic. 

Do we have to agree to disagree:

Here is my opinion: 

There are a ton of nuances to understanding the totality of what the medical research indicates on this or that topic, to understanding how the studies relate to medical protocols, and to understanding what those protocols actually suggest should be done in any given clinical situation. I don’t think you or I are qualified to evaluate what the totality of the evidence is on this or that medical issue, much less how this or that study affects it.  

I believe medical decisions ought to be made by doctors and patients. I believe in general, doctors and patients should be cautious about prescribing and taking drugs, and they should be extremely cautious about recommending or agreeing to surgery.

If you disagree with me on my actual position then fine, let’s agree to disagree.

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

  I think we both care about the welfare of minors.  

I appreciate that, but whether I care about “the welfare of minors” is irrelevant. What matters is whether the doctors they go to care.

[smac97]

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

On your parenthetical point, I’ll again point out that when somebody publicizes the results of a study in the New York Times, they aren’t suppressing it or hiding it.

When someone refuses to publish a study, they are suppressing it or hiding it.

That the New York Times caught her at it does not excuse her.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Regarding the effect that this study has upon the consensus of what treatment guidelines should say, I’ll leave that in the hands of the doctors. 

Right.  "The thinking has been done."

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I typed “pediatric sex trait modification” into Google scholar, and zero articles came up. 

Yes.  And?  It lacks the ideological baggage otherwise inherent in phrases like "gender-affirming care."  And using qualifiers like "so-called" and "supposed" and scare quotes gets tiresome.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

To the extent I have an ideology here, it goes back to the actuarial code of professional conduct.

Uh-huh.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

One of the most fundamental things in my profession is that “an Actuary shall perform Actuarial Services only when the Actuary is qualified to do so.” While I wouldn’t say that debating the efficacy of medical treatments on a message board is technically an Actuarial Service, it is adjacent to that--

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

actuaries have a seat at the table when it comes to creating the evidence-based care guidelines that are used for determining what health insurance will and will not cover.

So you are speaking as an actuary on this board?  I don't quite buy that.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

So from my perspective, you have the luxury of stating your position on these topics on purely ideological grounds, while I'm hindered by my professional obligation to refrain from commenting on things that are outside of my qualifications.

I don't buy this.  I reject the notion that Actuaries are professionally obligated to not speak (anonymously, even) in their individual capacities on matters pertaining to pediatric sex trait modification procedures.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Actually, my position is that I’m not qualified to evaluate the nuances of the medical research on these topics so personally, I am agnostic. 

Right.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Do we have to agree to disagree:

Here is my opinion: 

There are a ton of nuances to understanding the totality of what the medical research indicates on this or that topic, to understanding how the studies relate to medical protocols, and to understanding what those protocols actually suggest should be done in any given clinical situation. I don’t think you or I are qualified to evaluate what the totality of the evidence is on this or that medical issue, much less how this or that study affects it.  

I believe medical decisions ought to be made by doctors and patients. I believe in general, doctors and patients should be cautious about prescribing and taking drugs, and they should be extremely cautious about recommending or agreeing to surgery.

If you disagree with me on my actual position then fine, let’s agree to disagree.

I think you are ideologically compromised, and that claims of subject matter agnosticism are undermined by your extensive commentary on this topic (which even by your own invocation of ChatGPT is "ideological").

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I appreciate that, but whether I care about “the welfare of minors” is irrelevant.

How convenient.

Meanwhile, you have spent years, and thousands of hours writing thousands of posts, about a religion to which you do not belong.  Clearly you think your opinion about the Latter-day Saints is "relevant" there.  And yet when it comes to opining about pediatric sex trait modification, your "agnostic" and your opinion about minors with Gender Dysphoria is "irrelevant."

I wouldn't blame you if you are afraid of speaking publicly on this issue, even from behind a pseudonym.

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

What matters is whether the doctors they go to care.

What also matters is whether the doctors they go to are complying with the canons of ethics and the law.

What also matters is whether the doctors they go to are financially, emotionally, and/or sociopolitically compromised in their assessments of the best interests of their minor patients.

What also matters is whether the doctors they go to are unduly influenced by ideological/sociopolitical influences/pressures on medical care.

What also matters is whether the doctors they go to are receiving objective and evidence-based scientific/medical/ethical guidance on pediatric sex trait modification treatments.

All of these considerations center on the welfare of minors.  We as a society, all of us, should be attuned to this matter.

For someone who is supposedly "agnostic" about this issue, you sure seem to be heavily invested in discussing it and advancing a particular ideological point of view about it.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 24, 2024 by smac97