"All children who have been treated for gender dysphoria in the past decade [by the UK Tavistock clinic] will have their medical records scrutinised in an effort to find out whether NHS services are harming vulnerable adolescents." 1/ THREAD
thetimes.co.uk/article/gender-change-data-to-be-scrutinised-tcbjnv7w3
Data - or rather, lack of adequate data - is a recurring theme with youth gender clinics internationally. There are headline figures showing unexplained exponential growth in case numbers but often there is scant detail on patients, treatment patterns & outcomes including regret.
UK health secretary Sajid Javid, who reportedly believes that harm to children is being masked by ideological resistance to open debate, plans to change confidentiality provisions so that experts can check the treatment outcomes for about 9,000 ex-Tavistock patients.
Javid was alarmed by an interim report from Dr Hilary Cass, who is inquiring into NHS care of gender dysphoric youth. She said lack of data meant it was “not possible to accurately track the outcomes & pathways that [minors] take through the [Tavistock]”.
genderclinicnews.substack.com/p/strong-drugs-weak-evidence
The Times quotes a health source saying that allowing the Cass review to access this data in a secure way "will help develop a world-leading base of clinical evidence [&] ultimately that will benefit everyone, particularly children who may be questioning their gender identity”.
Dr Cass already has the results of independent systematic reviews of the evidence for puberty blockers & opposite sex-hormones. The evidence base is so weak that Dr Cass says it's not yet possible for her to give "definitive advice" on the safety & outcomes of these treatments.
That decision not to endorse puberty blockers or hormones for minors came under criticism from researchers linked to Australia's biggest gender clinic at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne (RCH).
Australia is worse off when it comes to public data from gender clinics. Our federal system means data is fragmented across jurisdictions. And although the Tavistock has been criticised over data collection, it does publish regular basic data, something no Australian clinic does.
In 2019, in Victoria, the state that is home to the RCH gender clinic, health minister Jenny Mikakos was asked in parliament for clinic data. The minister's reply was that her health department did not "routinely collect" this information; no data was given to parliament.
Also in 2019, the Queensland Children's Hospital gender clinic told a worried member of the public that it kept no data on how many female-born patients on puberty blockers were autistic. In 2021, the clinic reportedly began a new, more accurate data reporting system.
In 2020, after media scrutiny of children's hospital gender clinics, federal health minister Greg Hunt said he would ensure the states came up with a new national approach. He stressed the need for “monitoring of practices, & monitoring of long term health & wellbeing outcomes”.
In 2021, this federal-state project was wound up -- without collecting any patient data -- and was delegated to two states with no publicly known result. Senator Claire Chandler said it seemed "one or more states have killed off the opportunity for openness and transparency".
“There has been a huge increase in children being treated by gender clinics but, either through incompetence or by design, the states’ top health bureaucrats have no data to explain this trend,” said Senator Chandler, who had been pushing for public data and open debate.
I have reported some basic data, obtained under freedom of information law, showing dramatic increases in new patients at Australia's three large children's hospital gender clinics in Melbourne, Perth & Brisbane.
More info --
diannakenny.com.au/k-blog/item/15-children-and-young-people-seeking-and-obtaining-treatment-for-gender-dysphoria-in-australia-trends-by-state-over-time-2014-2019-update.html
So much is still unknown. Puberty blockers are central to the gender clinic model. This month, parents and patients at the RCH clinic were told that the effects of these drugs on the brain are unknown. #GenderClinics #AusPol #health
genderclinicnews.substack.com/p/blockers-and-the-brain
You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: typefully.com/Bernard_Lane/MyoOP2Q