Doctor concealed tax-funded puberty blocker study because it did not benefit his mental health

Washington, DC Newsroom, October 24, 2024 / 5:45 pm

A doctor who runs the “transgender” clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles blocked the publication of a $6 million federal study on puberty blockers because the results showed no mental health benefits for children given gender transition drugs. A report from the New York Times.

Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the study’s lead investigator and medical director of the Center for Transgender Youth Health and Development, is a staunch advocate of allowing doctors to provide transgender puberty blockers to children suffering from gender dysphoria.

Researchers, who received nearly $6 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), gave puberty blockers to 95 children suffering from gender dysphoria to analyze whether the drugs improved their mental health. The average age of the children participating in the study was under 11 and a half years old.

Olson-Kennedy and her fellow researchers began the study in 2015 and planned to follow the children’s mental health development over a two-year period. When a Times reporter asked her why she had not published any results after nine years, Olson-Kennedy expressed concern that the findings could support criticism of the use of puberty blockers in minors.

The pediatrician admitted to the Times that researchers had found no evidence that puberty blockers improved children’s mental health. Rather than publishing the results, he suppressed the findings due to potential political ramifications.

“I don’t want our work to be weaponized,” Olson-Kennedy said, according to the Times. “It has to be spot on, clear and concise. “This also takes time.”

According to the Times, Olson-Kennedy said she was particularly concerned about states that ban or restrict doctors from providing puberty blockers to children. Before the United States Supreme Court In December.

Olson-Kennedy did not respond to emailed questions from CNA about whether withholding the evidence would jeopardize public confidence in research on these issues or what she would say to parents who want access to that information before making medical decisions for suffering children. from gender dysphoria.

NIH also did not respond to CNA’s request for comment.

According to the Times, Olson-Kennedy attempted to explain the lack of improvement in mental health by saying the children “were doing really well (mentally health-wise) when they arrived, and two years later they were doing really well (starting).” taking puberty blockers).”

However, researchers had previously reported It was stated that approximately 30 percent of the children participating in the study suffered from depression, approximately one quarter had suicidal thoughts, and approximately 8 percent had attempted suicide. When the Times pressed Olson-Kennedy about this, she told them that she had told them about the data averages but was still analyzing the data.

Olson-Kennedy also I am working on a study with other researchers to analyze whether puberty blockers and other transgender hormone treatments affect bone development. Although they planned to publish these results in 2019, these findings have not been released until late 2024.

Critics of puberty blockers for children are questioning the ethics and integrity of the research following the Times’ statement.

“Scientific and financial integrity requires that taxpayer-funded research be published, whether or not the researchers or others like the results,” Jane Anderson, vice president of the American College of Pediatrics, told CNA.

“Individuals facing serious gender issues deserve better than researchers lying and being denied access to vital health information,” Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), told CNA.

“When it comes to selecting appropriate patient care and treatments, negative outcomes often outweigh positive outcomes,” Pacholczyk added.

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NCBC senior ethicist Joseph Meaney added that “it is deeply unethical to conceal the results of a scientific study for personal or political reasons.”

“To increase our medical knowledge, scientific research must be as objective as possible,” Meaney said. “Unfortunately, some scientists are motivated by purposes other than discovering the truth. Intuitively, one would expect puberty blockers to provide no benefit because they artificially inhibit the natural and healthy maturation of the human body.

This is not the first time health professionals have withheld information that raises questions about the effectiveness of gender transitions for children.

World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in 2021 Proposed change to age-based rules for transgender drugs and surgeries on minors after facing pressure from the Biden-Harris administration. The association removed the recommended minimum age for each procedure, citing concerns that the recommendations would fuel criticism of the use of puberty blockers in children.

An internal document showed that WPATH officials, after reviewing the “evidence,” knew they were “painfully aware of the gaps in the literature and types of research” needed to justify their final recommendations. But the WPATH Guideline Development Group recommended that the group remove phrases like “insufficient evidence” and “limited data” so lawmakers can’t use those documents to justify restrictions on transgender drugs or surgeries for children.

More than 20 states, like many countries in Europe, have banned or restricted doctors from changing the sex of children.

At the beginning of this year, doctors Unified Kingdom halted the use of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria after an independent review found there was no comprehensive evidence to support routine prescribing of transgender drugs to minors with gender dysphoria.

Some studies have also raised significant concerns about puberty blockers. Mayo Clinic study A study published earlier this year found that boys could suffer irreversible harm from drugs, such as fertility problems and atrophy of the testicles.

15 years of work The study, conducted by researchers in the Netherlands, found that two-thirds of children who wished to belong to the opposite sex during adolescence became comfortable with their biological gender by early adulthood.

Tyler Arnold is a staff reporter for the Catholic News Agency in EWTN News’ Washington Bureau. He previously worked at The Center Square and has written in a variety of outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.