Transing ChildrenTavistock quietly releases its experimental data on children given puberty blockers - and unethical research practices abound

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[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 25 insightful - 2 fun25 insightful - 1 fun26 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Found from an LGB Alliance tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/ALLIANCELGB/status/1340044070358573058

You'll notice that a "LGBTQ+ UK" group tells LGB Alliance:

If that were the case they would be banned full stop, they weren't and they are not causing considerable harm, Stop with your outrageous lies.

But that is the case, because LGB Alliance is quoting directly from the Tavistock study!

So let's talk about what the Tavistock study reported!

It's worth saying, right off the bat, that the study didn't seem to find that putting children on puberty blockers led to any discernible health benefits.

You could stop right there and start to criticize Tavistock. However, this article also highlights the shoddy research practices used in their study.

Some of the questionable, or downright unethical, data analysis practices employed:

  • Hypothesizing after results are known. Tavistock 2010 hypotheses: "Puberty blockers will be SUPER beneficial!" Tavistock 2019 hypotheses, after data was already in: "There will be no discernible benefit caused by the puberty blockers." (this is abbreviated as HARKing)

  • Failure to investigate meaningful group differences by sex. Investigating outcomes by demographic group is done all the time in research and the Dutch model that Tavistock's intervention is based on found noteworthy sex-based differences-- so why didn't Tavistock do those analyses? They have the data!

  • Omission of statistics relating to bone density data. The Tavistock data demonstrates shows a pattern in which the children receiving puberty blockers grew progressively lower in bone density compared to the norm, as time went on. But... the study authors did not conduct a statistical significance test (or report the range of bone density data) despite reporting on this pattern...

Worth noting-- this study is not peer-reviewed, it was just published as a "pre-print" (not yet peer-reviewed) version online.

edit: forgot a word, lol.

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 21 insightful - 2 fun21 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

We should not forget that main issue UK court had with Tavistock is that they were completely stopping monitoring their patients after they were out of Tavistock. So there were no info if this was helping them, how suicide rate raised or lowered after their treatment, any health issues appeared, and so on. Tavistock failed to provide any of data about patients after their treatment, so either they were afraid to show it, or they were completely ignorant to their patients after everything was done.

[–]PassionateIntensity 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They didn't show this to the court when asked to provide evidence and released it publicly after the judgement. They know.

[–]GConly 18 insightful - 2 fun18 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

When the experiment was designed, the GIDS had a caseload of only 29 teenagers aged between 12 and 15 (Viner et al., 2010, pp. 8–9), and so they planned to enrol 30–45 patients over three years. Referrals subsequently grew exponentially, perhaps helped by Dr Carmichael’s promotion of puberty blockers in newspaper interviews and on BBC Children’s Television.

So they were not getting enough guinea pigs, so they recruited them?

I'm also not seeing any research into the effect on IQ, which is a known side effect of blockers.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm also not seeing any research into the effect on IQ, which is a known side effect of blockers.

That's fascinating, I've never heard of that. Do you know of any studies about it? I found this case study wherein the participant's operational memory dropped by 9 points (that's kind of big). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694455/

[–]GConly 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, there's a few but they might take me a while to find on my old Reddit account.

IIRC: there's a couple in girls with precocious puberty that showed a big drop.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5253377/

It was found that the girls had a mean IQ of 94, as against a mean IQ of 102 for the matched control group

So an eight point difference.

I've seen a study in adults using it for other reasons and it showed it damaged a particular area of the brain involved with memory, but I'm buggered if I can locate the paper.

I'll give it my best and see what I can find overnight.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Awesome, thank you so much! That alone is helpful.