{"id":1445231,"date":"2022-04-19T07:32:19","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T11:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1445231"},"modified":"2022-04-19T07:32:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T11:32:29","slug":"doctors-biden-administrations-dangerous-push-for-trans-treatments-for-kids-falsifies-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doctors-biden-administrations-dangerous-push-for-trans-treatments-for-kids-falsifies-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors: Biden Administration\u2019s Dangerous Push For Trans Treatments For Kids Falsifies Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdoctors-biden-administrations-dangerous-push-for-trans-treatments-for-kids-falsifies-science%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1445231&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/pride-e1650316422156.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The nation\u2019s public-health establishment lost all credibility during the Covid era by either ignoring or politicizing scientific data. But health bureaucrats seem to have learned nothing. With respect to the highly charged issue of gender dysphoria, they continue to substitute politics for science when necessary to advance the leftist narrative.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released an official document designed to enshrine experimental medical interventions as the standard treatment for transgender-identifying children. Prepared by HHS\u2019s Office of Population Affairs (OPA), the document is a political statement unmoored from actual medical research.<\/p>\n<p>According to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/opa.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2022-03\/gender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf\">Gender-Affirming Care and Young People<\/a>,\u201d medical interventions such as puberty-blocking drugs, wrong-sex hormones, and surgical mutilation are \u201ccrucial to overall health\u201d of young people confused about their sex. (For what it\u2019s worth, OPA falls under the supervision of Dr. Rachel Levine, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/twitter-punishes-federalist-editor-for-rachel-levine-tweet.html\">a man who identifies as a woman<\/a>.) The document complements a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/01\/31\/under-biden-proposal-everyone-including-kids-could-more-easily-get-transgender-surgery\/\">proposed rule<\/a> announced by HHS in March, mandating insurance coverage for such \u201cgender-affirming care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the claims made in HHS\u2019s new release have been deftly dismantled by an organization of physicians and scientists who still care about reality, and about ethical medical practice. The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (<a href=\"https:\/\/segm.org\/\">SEGM<\/a>) <a>\u2014<\/a> which exists \u201cto promote safe, compassionate, ethical and evidence-informed healthcare for children, adolescents, and young adults with gender dysphoria\u201d <a>\u2014<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/segm.org\/fact-checking-gender-affirming-care-and-young-people-HHS\">points out<\/a> that HHS\u2019s discussion is deeply misleading and indeed dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>SEGM identifies seven serious misrepresentations of fact crammed into the two-page HHS document. Most of these involve cherry-picking, distorting, or simply ignoring the results of studies on the many facets of so-called gender-affirming treatment.<\/p>\n<h2>HHS Mischaracterizes Studies<\/h2>\n<p>For example, HHS flatly mischaracterizes a study that failed to find any benefits of \u201csocial transition\u201d (presenting oneself as the opposite sex, with a new name, hairstyle, dress, etc.). As SEGM notes, the HHS document cites that study for the opposite conclusion, \u201cwrongly assert[ing] that social transition improves functioning.\u201d HHS presumably assumes readers won\u2019t read the actual study and thus will accept the agency\u2019s false claims about its findings.<\/p>\n<p>SEGM identifies other falsifications of the supposed mental-health benefits of wrong-sex hormones and surgeries. HHS\u2019s \u201cclaims of benefits coming from cherry-picked studies do not hold up when the entire body of evidence is properly evaluated in a systematic and reproducible way,\u201d according to SEGM. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The design of the studies cited by HHS made it impossible to link medical interventions and improved mental health, SEGM observes. By contrast, multiple European studies \u201cconcluded that there is a lack of convincing evidence for the mental health benefit for children and adolescents of either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>SEGM notes, in fact, that the Swedish health authority warned that \u201cthe risks of puberty suppressing treatment . . . and gender-affirming hormonal treatment currently outweigh the possible benefits, and that the treatments should be offered only in exceptional cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>HHS ignored all this research, which would have led honest medical professionals to at least acknowledge the scholarly debate about the wisdom of these interventions. But HHS isn\u2019t run by honest medical professionals. It\u2019s in the grip of ideologues determined to drive troubled children and their families into the clutches of the trans industry.<\/p>\n<h2>Dishonest Use of Data on Suicide<\/h2>\n<p>SEGM also criticizes the HHS document for dishonesty about the related issue of suicide among trans-identifying youth. In claiming alarmingly high rates of suicidal ideation in this population \u2014 a claim <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/06\/16\/exploiting-child-suicide-to-bully-parents-of-trans-kids-is-the-ultimate-science-denial\/\">routinely used<\/a> to pressure desperate parents into consenting to dangerous medical interventions \u2014 HHS relies only on \u201ca low quality, non-probability online survey.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In fact, SEGM reports, \u201crecent research from one of the world\u2019s largest pediatric gender clinics estimated the rate of suicide in trans-identified youth as 0.03% over a 10-year period, which is comparable to youth presenting for care with mental health problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even more critically, despite HHS\u2019s strong implication that drugs, hormones, and surgeries reduce suicide rates, SEGM clarifies that \u201cno study to date has demonstrated that transition reduces the rate of serious suicide attempts.\u201d Is HHS afraid that telling the truth about suicide will make parents less likely to place their troubled children on the trans-industry conveyor belt?<\/p>\n<h2>Puberty Blockers Are Not Fully Reversible<\/h2>\n<p>The mendacity of HHS extends beyond misrepresenting or ignoring studies. For example, the document states, without supporting citation, that puberty blockers are fully reversible (i.e., natural puberty will resume once the drugs are discontinued). But SEGM warns about the utter dearth of research supporting this claim. In fact,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>concerns have been raised that puberty blockers are psychologically irreversible (since over 95% of all treated youth proceed to cross-sex hormones), that they may harm bone development, may permanently alter the brain, that it is not yet known how they affect other vital organs, all of which undergo significant structural changes during uninterrupted puberty.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Once again, public-health agencies in Europe are more honest. As SEGM reports, Britain\u2019s National Health Service says that \u201c[l]ittle is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But ignoring the risks of these interventions is HHS\u2019s modus operandi. SEGM calls out the HHS ideologues for mentioning only the supposed (in some cases imaginary) benefits of interventions while failing to mention documented risks to bone development, cardiovascular health, and the mental health of patients who later regret their transition decisions.<\/p>\n<h2>Sterility Expected After Trans Treatments<\/h2>\n<p>SEGM particularly targets HHS\u2019s failure to mention the effect on reproductive health, which is supposed to be the focus of Levine\u2019s Office of Population Affairs. \u201cWhen puberty blockers are administered in early puberty and followed by cross-sex hormones,\u201d SEGM notes, \u201csterility is expected.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>HHS is silent about this potentially devastating consequence. Nor does it acknowledge the \u201cserious ethical questions about whether adolescents can be considered competent to waive their future reproductive rights at an age when they are unlikely to be able to appreciate or predict the importance of fertility to their adult selves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ethics, it appears, is not HHS\u2019s strong suit.<\/p>\n<p>HHS also misleads in stating that mutilating surgeries are \u201ctypically used in adulthood or case-by-case in adolescence.\u201d In fact, as SEGM notes, draft recommendations from the influential (though highly politicized) World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) urge broad availability of mastectomies to patients at age 16. <\/p>\n<p>Even worse, patients <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2018\/09\/12\/u-s-doctors-performing-double-mastectomies-healthy-13-year-old-girls\/\">as young as 13<\/a> had their healthy breasts removed as part of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health \u2013 i.e., by you and me through our tax dollars. The HHS bureaucrats who prepared this report surely knew this, but distort the facts.<\/p>\n<p>This HHS document, then, is a farce. As SEGM summarizes, HHS inadequately reviewed the scientific literature, issued \u201cbiased recommendations that do not acknowledge the low quality of evidence,\u201d failed to solicit input from professionals and patients whose experiences contradict the government narrative, and utterly ignored possible alternatives to medical interventions, such as psychotherapy. The result:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>This incomplete representation of the relevant issues is likely to mislead the public to believe that this is the best and only alternative, particularly when no other alternatives are mentioned. The public is also likely to erroneously assume that the risks of affirmative care are low. Patients and families are not capable of providing valid informed consent when the information they receive is inaccurate and incomplete<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If the public-health establishment wants to rehabilitate its tattered reputation after the Covid debacle, this isn\u2019t the way to do it. Health policy is too important to be entrusted to political hacks.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Jane Robbins is an attorney and a retired senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington DC. In that position she crafted federal and state legislation designed to restore the constitutional autonomy of states and parents in education policy, and to protect the rights of religious freedom and conscience. She is a graduate of Clemson University and the Harvard Law School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The nation\u2019s public-health establishment lost all credibility during the Covid era by either ignoring or politicizing scientific data. But health bureaucrats seem to have learned nothing. With respect to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":691,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1445231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1445231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1445231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1445231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}