this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

All 83 of them?

Really that is the total for the entire country. Ya, it's a "serious" problem. .... Sure

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Scientist have collected all the data and decided the experts on Lemmy are wrong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Complete miss characterisation. It is lack of data the NHS is arguing with. Not scientific evidence.

The article is bluntly stating that the NHS has made this choice because no evidence of the long term safty exists. Not because scientists say it is unsafe.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm not particularly well educated on the subject but according to the BBC:

Fewer than 100 young people in England are currently prescribed puberty blockers by the NHS. They will all able to continue their treatment.

So why such a big fuss?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Blocks any future access to trans kids

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Can puberty blocking be reversed at a later date?

Or can blocked puberty be reverted later?

I could agree with a ban whole heatedly if blocking can't be reversed and blocked cannot be reverted, but I would likely to oppose a ban it if blocking can be reversed and blocked could be reverted.

Gets a little fuzzy if it's one or the other though.

Wouldn't want someone to miss their only chance to block puberty, but also wouldn't want someone to make a permanent choice at 13-14 which can't be reversed if they want to later on.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

When you stop taking them puberty continues as normal.

We've been using them for a long time on people who start puberty too early. And know they are effective and safe.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

When you stop taking them you go through puberty like normal. The idea is to protect trans kids from the irreversible effects of going through the wrong puberty, but not cause any irreversible effects if they're one of the <1% that later turns out to not be trans.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

You can't get any trans care that isn't reversible until you're an adult who can legally consent to it. Puberty blockers are reversible, you just stop taking them and go through puberty. This change is completely anti-scientific and pro-bigotry. It's indefensible.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

You just stop taking them, and your body will start going through puberty. Like the other response said, they're used for cis children as well when they start too early for their body to be able to handle. As with any medicine there can be side effects.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

puberty blockers are used explicitly to delay having to go through puberty. they are used for kids who have precocious puberty (puberty that starts too early), as well as for trans kids. there are some marginal risks associated with them, you might grow a bit shorter, or just generally develop differently that you might have if you had allowed puberty to progress on time, but there aren't specific health challenges people who use them face. the reason you take them is to explicitly prevent somebody from going through irreversible changes they might not like before they can make an informed decision, or before it is healthy for those changes to occur.

interestingly, most of the poor health outcomes of precocious puberty are psychological and social, not physical, which is, i think, an interesting parallel to the trans experience.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Glyndŵr, os ydych wedi gorffen cael te yn y bryniau hynny, gallem ddefnyddio llaw.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Good, there's not enough scientific evidence to claim it's safe for children, hence the ban....

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Given the drug has been used for almost 40 years. Lack of evidence it is safe. Is just a political way of saying we have no evidence it is dangerous.

After 40 years of clinical use. With many patients benifiting from its application. And the medications passing the medical trials standards of the 1980s. Pretty much any other medication the NHS has banned or restricted use of. Was because of new evidence. Not the lack of it. I say pretty much. Because cost and politics has been used in the past. The NHS was just more open about the reasons.

Restricting a long used medicine with a lack of evidence. Is a political not a scientific choice.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I have no idea what you source those beliefs on but research dome in Sweden just last year concludes:

Data on the effects on psychosocial health are lacking but there is some evidence that hormonal treatment may impact on bone maturation.

https://news.ki.se/systematic-review-on-outcomes-of-hormonal-treatment-in-youths-with-gender-dysphoria

So no, I would not claim it is risk free, especially when given to children.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I believe there are exceptions to the ban in the case of studies that are actively taking place. This isn't a complete halt on their use; just the general prescription has been paused.

The side effects like the effects on bone density and brain development do seem concerning and merit more investigation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Yes, stated as a recommendation until supporting evidence of its benefits can be found. The thing is that the side effects as you mentioned are well known and can unediably be linked to the therapy, thus warranting caution.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

We have decades of studies. You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, bigot.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I For someone interested in reading the studies, can you point some out on the long term effects?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Clearly NHS based their decision on different studies, but by all means feel free to share

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Why should I bother trying to educate you when you won’t even leave the article you’re arguing over?

Puberty blockers have been well-studied and widely-used since the late 1980s. They have been routinely used to pause puberty in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, treat children who enter puberty too early and help adults living with a range of other medical conditions.

Links included in the article btw. Go nuts. But please, by all means, tell me how we don’t have almost 40 years of research on this proving this policy is unnecessary.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Doctors used to regularly treat patients with mercury and blood letting. Then more data came out to say it was bad so they stopped doing it. That's how medicine works.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We still do bloodletting. Some hospitals have medical leeches. You do not know what you’re talking about,

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But they don't do it for everything because things they did use it for they found out were bad, just like puberty blockers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It was a dumb comparison and as others have pointed out, giving people mercury was not evidence-based treatment. Comparing half a century of data using quality methods and testing to mercury chugging centuries ago is profoundly ignorant.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

The evidence is not there for puberty blockers and it isn't there for mercury.

Either way the medical professionals have worked out what is best for the patient based on all the information and they have decided no to puberty blockers. No point talking about it anymore, the experts have spoken and neither of us has more data than them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Those weren't evidence based treatments to begin with. When we got evidence we stopped using them.

Puberty blockers already have evidence. They've been used since the 80s.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

no, it wasn't "more data", it was just data. blood letting and mercury are pre-scientific treatments that were in use during the 1600s. puberty blockers were developed with a modern understanding of hormones, and extensively tested before they saw use in a clinical setting. you might as well have brought up magic as a legitimate medical practice that we eventually proved wrong. like, no duh, but it also has basically no bearing on the safety of a chemically synthesized hormone inhibitor invented in the 20th century.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Both the health service in Sweden and Britain has recommended a complete stop to hormone blockers to children, citing lack of evidence to support the procedure.

And yet here you are, with studies and shit, saying the complete opposite. Maybe you can take your 'evidence' (and no, the linked article is not an unbiased source) to them; they might change their minds. Seems to me the right course of action since you are so invested.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nah, you made the claim here, you have the onus of providing sources to back your claim first.

Or, you can just refuse to, but it makes your claim weaker.

That's the way it works homie. If you make a claim, it can be challenged. If challenged, you're supposed to back your claim up before saying "no, you". If you can't/won't do that, you're going to end up being ignored.

Which is fine, nobody has to play by the rules of public discourse, but you can't act surprised when you get dismissed out of hand after refusing to do so.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

NHS recommendation (British health/social services):

https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/consultation/puberty-suppressing-hormones/

Socialstyrelsen recommendation (Swedish health/social services):

https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/om-socialstyrelsen/pressrum/press/uppdaterade-rekommendationer-for-hormonbehandling-vid-konsdysfori-hos-unga/

They each provide sources that they base their decision on. Took me five min to find.

And your sources?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You misunderstand, I wasn't objecting to you having made the claim, nor the claim itself. I have zero interest in debating online, particularly when the person has been a dick in the rest of the thread.

But I do enjoy pointing out things that people might not be aware are expected so that they can be less of a dick and start engaging in good faith.

That being said, you can't use the NHS to support NHS decisions. Also, that isn't a link to a study or experiment at all. So it isn't a valid source for online debate (and you'd get laughed offstage for trying that at an actual debate. Same with any given secondary source. That's just making an appeal to authority, which can only be useful if and when the authority is being recognized as an authority for the purpose of the specific debate. Since the NHS' decision is what's being questioned, you just linking to their opinion isn't useful. And I can't read Swedish, so I can't say anything about the other link, but I suspect it's the same thing.

There's methodology to a proper online debate. You aren't following it, so you're gong to keep running into people dismissing you, regardless of any validity or lack thereof in your attempts.

What you need to do to debate in good faith is to provide either links or correct citations for what you're using to make your opinion a claim that others should listen to.

Basically, to sum up, a post that brought about objections to the decision was made. You said "but the NHS is an authority to listen to". Others then said, "bullshit, they're using bad science". You then rebutted with, "nuh-uh this is their opinion, look at it again."

That's fine if your entire goal is to just keep saying that you trust the NHS and stand behind their opinion. That's perfectly fine, we all gotta make choices like that sometimes. But you can't pretend that doing so is a good faith effort at debate and discussion. You can actually state that directly, though, and then anyone wishing to argue with you can be told to piss off without any need for anything else. But it isn't how you change minds.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Holy fuck, lots of word for 'zero interest', especially seeing as you have damn no sources for your claims, lmao

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Funny that international studies show otherwise...

Welcome to my blocked list.

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