I have a doctors appointment this morning that may take most of the morning.    When I get back, I will be doing some more reading and posting on the Sweden / puberty blockers issue.  It has been hyped by the right as proving their point.   I guess that makes sense if you think the red states passing fetal heart beat bills means that there is a heart in a 6 week old fetus.    There is not, but the Republican led states keep claiming there is.    So are they correct.   The anti-abortion folks think so.   Same bias is working on the Sweden issue.   More later.  

(Anatoliy Cherkasov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)

Puberty blockers can be “life-saving” drugs for trans teenagers, according to a landmark study that is the first to examine access to puberty blockers and suicide risk.

The study, published in medical journal Pediatrics, found that if trans teenagers have access to the medication their chance of suicide and mental health problems significantly declines.

 

Access to puberty blockers for a trans teen who wants them reduces their likelihood of trying to die by suicide in both the short and long term, the study found, as well as significantly reducing their likelihood of experiencing mental-health problems.

Multiple medical associations, including the Endocrine Society, have guidelines recommending doctors offer trans teens pubertal suppression therapy, also known as puberty blockers, which has been a treatment option in the US since 1998.

Puberty blockers delay puberty until a trans teenager is old enough to make decisions about having gender-affirming medical treatment.

 

“Historically we have known the puberty blockers are safe and effective and this is totally reversible, so the benefits far outweigh any risk. It is sort of a no-brainer to make these available in these circumstances,” said Dr Michelle Forcier, an associate professor of paediatrics at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who was not part of the study.

The research comes as a dozen states in the US are promoting bills that focus on young trans people at the urging of conservative advocacy groups.

These bills include barring doctors from providing certain gender-related medical treatment to young trans people, including puberty blockers, and banning young trans people from playing school sports.

Forcier added that nobody would deny a child with asthma their inhaler, or refuse cancer treatment for a child with cancer, yet some parents still express reservations about puberty blockers.

 

 

She wants to remind these parents that pausing puberty is a “life-saving option”, she said.

“By not allowing their child to use these drugs, that is not a neutral option,” said Forcier. “This is why this paper is so important. This access is associative into adulthood and is important for safety. We know that access can offer protective effects. This is something that will help a parent keep their child safe.”

Dr Rachel Levine, a practising paediatrician in Pennsylvania, said this new study is important because it’s the first to specifically show the link between access to puberty blockers and a decrease in suicidality.

 

“It is very important for medical professionals to understand scientific studies like this,” Levine said.

“It is also critically important as far as policy,” she said, “that policy makers do not get in the way of medical standards of care.”

 

 

More: Brown University, mental health, pediatrics, puberty blockers, trans teens

I have a doctors appointment this morning that will take some time.   When I get home I will address the issue of Sweden, the large hospital there stopping use of puberty blockers, and the people on the right misusing the headlines to push a narrative.    I have some open tabs and I am reading up on it.   But here is something to think of, if you only quoted Texas laws and state medical advisories / medical boards would you think abortion was safe?   You need to look for the bias because I am finding in the reading I am doing on the claims about Sweden stopping puberty blockers.  I will have more on it when I get back.   But here is something to look at including the 2020 study that showed puberty blockers save lives.  

Placard saying “Protect Trans kids” during the Trans march on the streets of Toronto during the Pride Month. (LightRocket via Getty/ Anatoliy Cherkasov/SOPA Images)

A Swedish government agency has recommended that puberty blockers be withheld from trans youth, despite overwhelming evidence that the treatment is “life-saving”.

The National Board of Health and Welfare, also known as the Socialstyrelsen, is Sweden’s equivalent of the UK’s NICE. It is responsible for issuing public health advice and its guidelines inform – but do not necessarily dictate – clinical practice.

 

In new guidelines on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth published on Tuesday (22 February), the Socialstyrelsen advised that blockers should only be prescribed in “exceptional cases” and claimed their use is backed by “uncertain science”.

Researchers in 2020 found that puberty blockers can be “life-saving” for trans youth, drastically decreasing their chance of suicide, depression and anxiety.

Thomas Lindén, head of knowledge-based policy at the Socialstyrelsen, said that the agency was unable to “draw any definite conclusions about the effect and the safety of [puberty blockers] based on scientific knowledge”, and claimed that “the risks… outweigh the possible benefits”

 

Only in so-called “exceptional cases” should puberty blockers be given, he said. But “psychosocial interventions, child psychiatric treatment and suicide prevention measures” should be provided by clinicians.

In Sweden, organisations commissioning and delivering services are expected to take Socialstyrelsen recommendations into account when planning and providing healthcare.

Clinicians are expected to be familiar with the advice and take it into account when exercising clinical judgement – it does not, however, override individual responsibility for what treatment is best for their patients. The guidelines also help decision-makers allocate resources and formulate their own specific guidelines.

 

This means that while Socialstyrelsen’s judgments play a big part in what healthcare is available to Swedes, individual providers may supply alternatives or tweak the guidelines to suit particular patients.

Socialstyrelsen also approves all requests to change gender markers on identity documents in Sweden

Swedish health board cites ‘junk science’

 

Lindén said that Socialstyrelsen officials had requested the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment (SBU), a healthcare watchdog, to provide it with all “relevant studies on the effect and safety of hormone treatments“.

When combing through the compiled research, SBU concluded that more research into puberty blockers must be done. This is despite puberty blockers already being well-studied – a 2021 study found their use helps trans teens feel happier.

Among the evidence that the Socialstyrelsen cites is an American study vastly debunked as “junk science” by activists and healthcare professionals.

 

The 2018 analysis by Lisa Littman on detransitioners (people who renounce their trans identities and return to the gender they were assigned at birth) sought to prove the existence of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria“.

 

The debunked term coined by Littman claims a “social contagion” is responsible for young people identifying as trans, rather than, say, growing acceptance of gender diversity.

No major healthcare organisations recognise rapid-onset gender dysphoria. Littman’s research was, within a week, pulled by the journal PLOS One.

However, Lindén came to the conclusion: “It is not possible to determine how common it is for people who undergo gender-confirming treatment to later change their perception of their gender identity, interrupt the treatment or in some aspect regret it.”

A 50-year longitudinal study in Sweden that found of 767 trans people, just two per cent expressed regret following gender-affirming surgery. Studies in Britain and the Netherlands found similar rates of 0.47 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively.

Conversely, around 20 per cent of people who have undergone knee replacement surgery come to regret it, researchers found.

The same study which confirmed the majority of young trans people feel happier and more comfortable after being prescribed puberty blockers also found that 98 per cent continued on to hormone replacement therapy.

More: puberty blockers, Sweden