Earlier this year, a Biden administration official “claimed without evidence that there is consensus in the medical community that so-called “gender-affirming care” is good for kids,” notes Matt Margolis.
“There is no argument among medical professionals — pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. — about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care,” claimed the official, Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine.
In reality, Margolis observes,
a new study has found that Levine’s claim is not supported by data. In fact, there is no medical science to support his claim whatsoever.
The study, which was conducted by the nonprofit organization Sex Matters in the United Kingdom, found that the alleged benefits of “gender-affirming care” are “no greater than a placebo effect.”
“The ‘gender-affirming’ model of care for teenagers is based on evidence that falls apart under examination,” Sex Matters says. “There is strong evidence that this medical pathway causes physical harm. It can lead to infertility and loss of future sexual function; among multiple side effects, bone health suffers.”
According to Sex Matters, these side effects might be tolerable if there were substantial mental health advantages associated with them. However, the study discovered that there are no mental health advantages.
“Perhaps there are some teenagers for whom the cost-benefit analysis works out — but we have no evidence to tell us which ones, or under what circumstances,” the group explains. “We do know that the physical impacts are significant, and the mental-health improvements minimal.”
The transgender cult, which has received the enthusiastic support of the radical left, claims these treatments are medically necessary and resolve mental health issues of gender dysphoric children. In fact, the cult claims that unless children are pumped full of dangerous drugs and have their bodies mutilated to appear more like the opposite sex, they’ll inevitably commit suicide. But these claims are based on bogus data. “Findings are inflated and limitations overlooked,” the group says. “A fresh analysis of the evidence base is urgently needed, in which the studies are reviewed and re-interpreted to remove unjustified claims of benefit.”……
Sadly, we know why this is happening: it’s all about money. Transgender surgeries have huge profit margins, and apparently, the margins are high enough that doctors are willing to destroy the lives of children for it.
“The Biden administration supports using taxpayer dollars to fund sex-change operations on minors, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra confirmed in written testimony submitted to the House Committee on Education Labor on Nov. 29,” reported the Daily Caller.
The Biden administration official pushing sex changes for children has long sought to find evidence to justify them, with little success. In November, the Daily Caller reported:
A top Biden healthcare official sought out justification for performing sex change operations on children during the official’s previous role leading a state health agency, according to newly obtained emails.
Dr. Rachel Levine, currently the assistant secretary for health at President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), asked in a 2017 email exchange if any scientific literature was available to support “bottom” surgeries for minors, according to emails obtained by activist Megan Brock and shared with the Daily Caller. Dr. Nadia Dowshen of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia replied she was “not aware of existing literature.”
“I know that we had discussed at US PATH the possibility of gender confirmation surgery for young people under 18 years of age. This could include top surgery for trans young men and top and bottom surgery for trans young women,” Levine said in an email to Dowshen dated May 4, 2017. “Is there any literature to support this protocol? Please let me know if you have any references.”
Dowshen replied that she was “not aware of existing literature but it is certainly happening.”
“I think we’ve had more than 10 patients who have had chest surgery under 18 (as young as 15) and 1 bottom surgery (17),” Dowshen continued. “We are trying to work with HUP and Drs Rumer, McGinn to start to try to get some pre-post data for top surgeries for youth under 18. I can also have one of my RAs do a lit search to make sure not missing anything and would be interested if you find anything since a lot of our youth are being denied coverage for top surgery if under 18.”
Sex changes for minors are very profitable for healthcare providers, thanks to government subsidies and mandates. That results in unnecessary, harmful sex changes — “transgender lunacy” — according to the Washington Examiner:
This week, a video surfaced from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in which a Dr. Shane Taylor was caught on tape saying in 2018, “Starting January 1, 2017, according to the Affordable Care Act, insurance carriers are mandated to cover medical expenses for trans folks.” Taylor went on to note that some of Vanderbilt’s “financial folks” looked at how much each transgender patient could bring into the hospital and found that, just looking at “top surgery” (not even including “bottom surgery”), each transgender patient would be extremely profitable.
“It’s a lot of money,” Taylor said. “These surgeries make a lot of money.”
A Freedom of Information lawsuit earlier revealed that Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services promoted gender transitions for minors without consulting with key experts at the FDA. The FDA has warned that the puberty blockers used by minors in gender transitions can have dire side effects, such as brain swelling and permanent vision loss.
In March 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a document promoting gender transitions for young people, including “puberty blockers” “during puberty”, “hormone therapy” from “early adolescence onward”, and “gender-affirming surgery” (such as removal of breasts and testicles) either in “adulthood or case-by-case in adolescence.”
Strangely, this HHS guidance document, titled “Gender Affirming Care in Young People,” was issued not by HHS agencies that have expertise in transgender issues (such as the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drugs such as puberty blockers), but rather by the Office of Population Affairs, which deals with family planning, teenage pregnancy, and adoption.
In Newsweek, former FDA official David Gortler expressed concern about this, and asked why the Office of Population Affairs was “even commenting on gender transition treatments….As a former senior executive FDA drug safety official, I have to wonder why my 20,000-plus former colleagues at the FDA are not speaking out after being circumvented on transgender clinical pharmacology recommendations by an obscure, obviously unqualified HHS office.”
The FDA recently added a warning to the puberty blockers used by transgender children undergoing gender transitions. The warning was added after the FDA identified “a serious potential side effect” that can “cause a dangerous surge of spinal fluid pressure in the brain,” as well as “headaches, nausea, double vision, and even permanent vision loss.”
As Gortler noted in Newsweek, the HHS “gender affirming care”
document claims to outline an established standard of care on how to proceed with social, pharmacological and surgical “affirmation” of children and adolescents who identify as transgender. When announcing the new document, Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine went so far as to state “there is no argument among medical professionals—pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc.—about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.”
Levine’s extreme statement was rightly rebuked by physicians and members of Congress for not being appropriately based in evidence.
At first glance, the HHS/OPA document gives the impression that anyone and everyone should just start writing prescriptions and scheduling surgical procedures upon request. Observant scientists and clinicians will notice the document is most remarkable for what it doesn’t say.
As a pharmacologist, pharmacist and research scientist who has dedicated his life to drug safety, drug development and evidence-based clinical and non-clinical science and medicine, I have some important questions—starting with who the authors of this document are, and what academic credentials they have.
Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for gender transition are all off-label, non-FDA-approved use. I’d be curious what published studies were the basis for the HHS/OPA recommendations regarding the use of those drugs. Were existing FDA- and non-FDA drug safety databases reviewed to assess risk to gender-appropriate and gender-incongruent application and administration? More importantly, was anyone from the FDA even consulted, and if not, why not?
The document fails to mention the potential short- or long-term risks of its pharmacological and non-pharmacological recommendations.
