UK bans puberty blockers for children, citing safety concerns
LGBT groups responded with indignant outrage, neglecting to address drug safety
The United Kingdom has temporarily banned controversial puberty blocking drugs for minors, citing a recent report that concluded the protocol lacked sufficient evidence of safety.
"The Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) has provided independent expert advice that there is currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children," the Department of Health and Social Care announced last week, as The Christian Post reported.
"Puberty blockers for the treatment of gender incongruence and/or gender dysphoria in under 18s were banned temporarily in May 2024 after the Cass Review found there was insufficient evidence to show they were safe. Legislation will be updated today to make the order indefinite and will be reviewed in 2027."
The UK’s gender “transition” programs for youth were once at the center of western controversy surrounding transgender ideology and the medicalization of gender confusion.
But, even as the Biden administration in the United States has stanchly supported the practice, Britian and other European countries have begun rolling back the so-called “Dutch protocol.”
Wes Streeting, the secretary of the department, noted that child healthcare should be “evidence-led” and that officials "need to act with caution and care when it comes to this vulnerable group of young people."
Meanwhile, professed advocates for the young people roped into the reckless hormone-wrecking drug protocol responded with a statement that demanded youth retain access to puberty blockers — and ignored any safety concerns surrounding the same.
“Every single child and young person, across all nations of the UK, should be able to get the care that they need to grow up happy and healthy,” the notorious pro-LGBT organization Mermaids said in a statement. “To be supported by well trained, knowledgeable professionals who can make the right decisions with them, and who have access to appropriate medical treatments.”
The group accused the government of ignoring “the voices of trans youth” and pointed to “concerns” from a European Council study that indicated an NIH pause on puberty blockers as an occurrence where such drugs were withheld from children.
Yet neither Mermaids nor the European Council appear to present any evidence that such drugs are remotely safe for children, or anyone else for that matter, which is what the UK’s health agency cites as the reason for the ban.
The study the Department of Health and Social Care and the NIH have used to inform their policies restricting the use of puberty blockers in children concluded in 2022 that significant knowledge gaps existed casting doubt on its impact of efficacy.