Health Secretary voices concerns over puberty blocker trial

The Health Secretary has said he’s “not comfortable” with the upcoming puberty blockers trial.

King’s College London has been given funding of £10.7 million for the Pathways project, which includes the controversial trial. Puberty-blocking drugs will be given to children with “gender incongruence”, who will be monitored for two years with brain scans and tests.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced an indefinite ban on the drugs last year due to evidence that ‘the current prescribing pathway’ posed an “unacceptable safety risk” to children and young people.

Concerns

Speaking to LBC radio, Streeting said: “Hilary Cass recommended we do a proper study. The pathways study involves a whole range of treatments and care, including therapeutic mental health support, but it also included a trial on this puberty blockers thing. I’m not comfortable, candidly, about it.”

He explained: “The two overriding concerns that I have, the only two really are: firstly, how do we keep these children safe? And how do we make sure they receive effective and evidence-based care? And, secondly, to follow clinical advice”.

The Health Secretary added: “It’s gone through rounds and rounds of ethical approvals to approve this kind of study. So that’s the basis on which we are proceeding.”

However, he noted, “one thing we’ve learned in this whole area is not to shout down people who’ve got concerns”, saying “medication that delays or indeed stops a natural part of our human development, which is puberty, I’m deeply uncomfortable with”.

‘Indefensible’

The Shadow Women and Equalities Minister Claire Coutinho commented: “Wes Streeting is right to be ‘uncomfortable’ about putting children as young as eight, who might have autism and neurological differences, on a pathway to infertility and loss of sexual function. No child can consent to that. It is a grotesque experiment on children and it must be halted.”

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, called the trial “unethical” and called for it to be stopped “before more damage is done to children”.

A letter from families of children who identify as transgender, detransitioner and campaigner Keira Bell, and psychotherapist James Esses stated that the trial “fails to safeguard the rights, safety and wellbeing of its subjects, who constitute highly vulnerable children”.

The Times highlighted Dr Cass’s statement that puberty blockers are “powerful drugs with unproven benefits and significant risks” and concluded: “Today’s children should not be put at fresh risk to provide an evidence base which could, and should, have been achieved by other means. It is time to halt this confused and indefensible trial.”

Public opinion

A poll this month on behalf of Transgender Trend found that 63 per cent of the British public agree that the NHS puberty blocker trial should be stopped, with opposition being particularly strong among parents of under-18s.

Director of Transgender Trend, Stephanie Davies-Arai called the results “a clear mandate from the British people to stop the trial”.

She explained: “The British public instinctively knows that medically experimenting on children is wrong. Most understand that children are too young to make medical decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

“It’s not a party political issue but common sense. The government now needs to listen and do what’s right.”