Doctor refuses to release study on trans kids showing puberty blockers don’t help mental health

A prominent doctor and trans rights advocate has admitted he deliberately withheld publication of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study on the effect of puberty blockers on American children, after finding no evidence that improve patients’ mental health.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times that she believes the study would be “gunned down” by critics of transgender child care, and that the research could one day be used in court to argue that “we shouldn’t use blockers”. “

Critics, including one of Olson-Kennedy’s fellow researchers on the study, said the decision flies in the face of research standards and deprives the public of “really important” science in a field where Americans remain firmly divided.

For the National Institutes of Health-funded study, researchers chose 95 boys (who had an average age of 11) and gave them puberty-blocking drugs starting in 2015. The treatments are meant to delay the ‘appearance of bodily changes such as the development of breasts or the deepening of the voice.

After following up with the youth for two years, the treatments did not improve their mental health status, which Olson-Kennedy noted meant the children were in “very good shape” both when they started and when they concluded the two-year treatment.

However, the Times notes that their rosy assessment contradicts previous data recorded by researchers who found that about a quarter of study participants “were depressed or suicidal” before receiving treatment.

The result also does not support the findings of a 2011 Dutch study, which is the main scientific research cited by advocates of giving children puberty blockers. This study of 70 children found that children treated with puberty blockers had better mental health and fewer behavioral and emotional problems.

Olson-Kennedy, the outlet notes, is one of the nation’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to teenagers, regularly offering expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures, which they have taken root in more than 20 states.

When asked by the Times why the results have not been made public after nine years, he said: “I don’t want our work to be a weapon”, adding: “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise . And that takes time.”

At the time, he bluntly admitted that he feared that the lack of mental health improvements shown by the study could one day be used in court to argue that “we shouldn’t be using blockers.”

A Washington Post-KFF Trans in America poll found that 68 percent of American adults oppose providing puberty blockers to trans-identifying 10- to 14-year-olds, and 58 percent they oppose hormone treatments for 15- to 17-year-olds.

Boston College clinical and research psychologist Amy Tishelman, who was one of the study’s original investigators, pointed out the obvious contradiction in withholding scientific evidence on the basis that it does not match an expected conclusion. .

“I understand the fear of being armed, but it’s very important to get the science out there,” he told the outlet.

“No change is necessarily a negative finding; there could be a preventative aspect to it,” he said hopefully.

“We don’t know without further investigation.”

In a 2020 progress report submitted to the NIH, participants in the Olson-Kennedy hypothesized study would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-harm, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time”.

Olson-Kennedy seemed to try to muddy the waters in her interview with the Times when she explained how her hypothesis didn’t pan out, claiming that the participants had “good mental health on average.”

He made this claim “several times” despite previously saying that 25% of the young patients in the study suffered from various symptoms of mental illness before starting treatments.

When pressed by the press for an explanation for the seemingly contradictory findings, Olson-Kennedy attributed it to “data averaging,” which she said she was “still analyzing the full data set.”

In April, England’s National Health Service (NHS) banned puberty blockers for children after a four-year review by independent researcher Dr Hilary Cass, who wrote in her report , “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way. to manage their gender-related discomfort.”

Last year, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, one of Finland’s leading experts in pediatric gender medicine, said in a newspaper interview that “four out of five” gender-questioning children will eventually come out of it and accept their bodies even without medical intervention.