Former
transgender kid, Chloe Cole, shares the complications she deals with
every day as a result of medical interventions she was subjected to
after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria. "I'm not sure whether it'll
even go away," she said.
Swedish doctors at a top medical school
released a systemic review of available medical literature on providing
puberty blockers to children, and said its use for treating gender
dysphoria should be considered "experimental."
Doctors
at the Karolinska Institute, ranked as a top 15 medical school in
Europe, published an article in Acta Paediatrica on April 17, which was
partly funded by an independent Swedish governmental agency tasked with assessing methods used in healthcare and making recommendations. The review analyzed thousands of studies, and focused on those without significant bias.
The doctors – among them an adviser to Sweden's medical board – concluded, "GnRHa treatment in children
with gender dysphoria should be considered experimental treatment of
individual cases rather than standard procedure." Puberty blockers, or
gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRHa), is a class of drugs
which suppresses sex hormones by continually stimulating the pituitary
gland.
The Karolinska Institute's systemic analysis, also led to a conclusion that GnRH analogues
were found to delay bone maturation and mineral deposits, which may be
only be partially restored by age 22 with cross-sex hormones. But they
noted research was limited on that as well.
Doctors in Sweden have increasingly raised concerns about the safety of puberty blockers.
Ricard Nergårdh speaks about concerns regarding puberty blockers, or GnRH for children. (STV/screenshot)
Ricard Nergårdh, a pediatric endocrinologist
and researcher affiliated with the Karolinska Institute, told Swedish
TV's Mission Investigate in 2021 that physicians try not to keep
children on blockers for too long in order to minimize the risks of
GnRH, which is also used to facilitate medical castration for some
prostate cancers.
"What we call GnRH treatment is chemical castration. And it can affect mental health
in an unintended, undesirable way. So it's very important that the
patient and the patient's family are informed about this," he said.
"I'm very worried about it, and I think I'm not alone in that," he said about his concerns of GnRH for children.
Mission
Investigate reported that a Swedish transgender boy named "Leo," who
was taking puberty blockers for over four years, developed osteopenia, a
condition where an individual lacks bone density, which can progress to
osteoporosis and lead to bone fractures if not treated.
And at
15 years old he cannot stand longer than 15 minutes, he lives in
constant pain and has a series of issues with his spine.
"My son shouldn’t be this way at his age," his mother said. "He should not have to live with this."
The
Karolinska University Hospital filled out a report on what happened to
Leo, and followed up with findings that other children may have been
exposed to serious medical injury.
The hospital then stopped providing blockers to children with gender dysphoria as a standard of practice.
The media attention led the Swedish government
to begin commissioning inquiries to reassess its health
recommendations. In 2022, its medical board released guidance to change
its earlier policies from 2015 to a more restrictive practice of
prescribing blockers and hormones to children.
The
Karolinska University Hospital is pictured on January 18, 2023, in
Solna, near Stockholm. Sweden, the world's first country to recognise
transgender rights, has begun restricting gender reassignment hormone
treatments for minors. (JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images))
"[I]t
is not yet possible to draw any definite conclusions about the effect
and safety of the treatments based on scientific evidence," the board
said."[T]he risks of puberty-inhibiting and gender-affirming hormone
treatment for those under 18 currently outweigh the possible benefits
for the group as a whole."
The guidance change was also made due to "the new knowledge that detransition occurs among young adults
and the… unexplained increase in the number of care seekers, an
increase particularly large among adolescents registered as females at
birth."
Despite the limited research on the subject of prescribing
puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, providers in the United
States commonly refer to the drugs as "completely reversible," and
stress its overall safety.
Doctors at Department of Defense
military bases, for example, recently criticized the idea of "watchful
waiting" on minor with gender dysphoria before referring them for
hormonal treatments, calling it "conversion therapy."
"These are temporary medicines," said Boston Children's Hospital about GnRH. "[T]hey do not cause any permanent changes."
"It's
like hitting the pause button," wrote St. Louis Children's Hospital.
The institution went on to exemplify how GnRH is safe by stating the FDA
approved it for children with precocious puberty, a physical condition
in which kids, including those who can be as young as 5, begin to
manifest adolescent development. This condition can be managed with GnRH
in order to delay their puberty to a later, and more appropriate,
timeframe.
However, what was not explicitly mentioned, is the
drug is used off-label in treatment for gender dysphoria. Off-label is
the practice of prescribing a drug for a different purpose than what the
FDA approved.
GnRH agonists are also used for prostate cancer patients. (Adobe Stock)
Last
year, the FDA identified six cases of children taking GnRH agonists,
which presented "a plausible association" to causing increased pressure
around the brain which can eventually lead the organ to swell.
Proponents
of blockers further argue that stopping the natural biological process
can lead to better outcomes for transgender kids, since it provides
families with time to consider their options, and for a child to further
explore their identity before progressing to permanent drugs such as cross-sex hormones and surgeries.
However,
the researchers at Karolinska could not determine the psychosocial
benefit of the drugs as treatment for dysphoria based on the current
scientific evidence available.
This position was similarly echoed
by Dr. Nergårdh, who said, "The scientific support for the effects of
the treatments and the risks of the treatment is relatively weak."
The
doctors who conducted the government-funded study, concluded, "Evidence
to assess the effects of hormone treatment on the above fields in
children with gender dysphoria are insufficient."
About gender
medical interventions for minors, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm,
told Fox News Digital, "The point here is that for a treatment that
immutably changes these children’s lives, It is unconscionable to push
these treatments without a clear understanding of the long-term
consequences. What we are hearing from European countries, including the
latest of Belgium, is that the long-term effects do not accrue to the
benefit of these children."
Hannah Grossman is an Associate Editor at Fox News Digital.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/top-swedish-doctors-blow-whistle-on-trans-puberty-suppressing-drugs-affecting-childrens-bones-experimental
