‘Unacceptable safety risk’: Puberty blockers permanently banned in UK

The United Kingdom announced this week that it is pulling the pin on an experiment that may have had adverse effects on children’s bone density, cognitive performance, emotional stability, and future fertility.

National Health Service England
announced in March that minors would no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at so-called gender-identity clinics, stating, “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of [puberty-suppressing hormones] to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”

Months later, then-British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Victoria Atkin
used emergency powers “to ban puberty blockers for new treatments of gender dysphoria from private clinics and for all purposes from overseas prescribers into Great Britain.” The ban on private sales goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

On Wednesday, the British Department of Health and Social Care
announced that existing emergency measures banning the sale and supply of puberty blockers “will be made indefinite, following official advice from medical experts,” in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

“The Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) has provided independent expert advice that there is currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children. It recommends indefinite restrictions while work is done to ensure the safety of children and young people,” the department said in a release.

‘Puberty blockers are powerful drugs with unproven benefits and significant risks.’

Blaze News
previously reported that the drugs in question, luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone agonists, also known as GnRHa, have long been used to chemically castrate sex offenders.

According to the medical advocacy group Do No Harm’s Stop the Harm database, between 2019 and 2023, at least 13,994 American minors underwent sex-change treatments and over 8,500 received hormones and puberty blockers. The Free Press noted in August that the leading provider of sex-change hormones for young adults in the United States is Planned Parenthood.

Puberty blockers, rebranded for kids with gender confusion, have been characterized as safe and effective by LGBT activists and pharmaceutical reps. This narrative did not, however, survive the
release of the Cass Review earlier this year, at least on the other side of the Atlantic.

Dr. Hilary Cass, an acclaimed British medical doctor who previously served as president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, was commissioned by NHS England to investigate the U.K. sex-change regime and its youth-facing services. The penetrating investigation revealed that where so-called gender science is concerned, “there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.”

Extra to pointing out that so-called gender-science is largely based on research of “poor quality,” demonstrating “poor study design, inadequate follow-up periods and a lack of objectivity in reporting of results,” the Cass Review demolished the case for using puberty blockers, stressing the uses “are unproven and benefits/harms are unknown.”

The review found not only that puberty blockers compromise bone density but have no apparent impact on so-called gender dysphoria.

Dr. Cass said of the indefinite ban, “I support the government’s decision to continue restrictions on the dispensing of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria outside the NHS where these essential safeguards are not being provided.”

“Puberty blockers are powerful drugs with unproven benefits and significant risks, and that is why I recommended that they should only be prescribed following a multi-disciplinary assessment and within a research protocol,” added Dr. Cass.

‘Children’s healthcare must always be evidence-led.’

James Palmer, the NHS medical director for specialized services, stated, “Evidence reviews by NICE and NHS England, supported by Dr Cass, clearly showed there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones for the treatment of gender dysphoria or incongruence, which is why the NHS decided that they would no longer be routinely offered to children and young people.”

Rather than loading confused kids up with transmogrifying drugs and removing body parts, the British health system is now focused on offering holistic support and working with patients on mental health.

Wes Streeting, the current health and social care secretary, stated, “Children’s healthcare must always be evidence-led. The independent expert Commission on Human Medicines found that the current prescribing and care pathway for gender dysphoria and incongruence presents an unacceptable safety risk for children and young people.”

“Dr. Cass’ review also raised safety concerns around the lack of evidence for these medical treatments,” continued Streeting. “We need to act with caution and care when it comes to this vulnerable group of young people, and follow the expert advice.”

While Britain has grown wise to the potential risks of puberty blockers, the money and ideology-driven regime stateside has not similarly been dealt a national blow.

Dr. Cass
blasted certain American medical associations in a May New York Times interview, suggesting that the American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance — which has repeatedly lashed out against Republican-led states for protecting children from child sex-change mutilations — has held “on to a position that is now demonstrated to be out of date by multiple systematic reviews.”

Cass suggested it “wouldn’t be too much of a problem if people were saying, ‘This is clinical consensus and we’re not sure.’ But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. I think that’s where you’re misleading the public.”

Of the 28 states where Republicans control the legislature, 24 red states have successfully passed bans to protect children from puberty blockers, hormone therapies, or sex-change mutilations,
reported the New York Times. Robert Hinkle, a Clinton-nominated federal judge, suggested that such Republicans had actually acted on “old-fashioned discriminatory animus.”

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week about a puberty blocker ban in Tennessee. Should the high court uphold the ban when issuing its decision in
United States v. Skrmetti sometime next year, similar bans will be reinforced across the country.

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