<\/p>\n
A taxpayer-funded study of children and young adults taking puberty blockers and hormone treatments found no improvement in youth mental health.\n<\/p>\n
The Oversight Project, a watchdog group, obtained the final report of \u201cThe Impact of Early Medical Treatment in Transgender Youth\u201d and shared it with the Daily Signal.<\/p>\n
The National Institutes of Health first allocated a nine-year grant of up to $10 million for the study through the Children\u2019s Hospital of Los Angeles. The study was led by\u00a0Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who specializes in \u201cgender-affirming care.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
The study included people as young as 8 years old. The sample receiving puberty blockers included participants up to age 16, while the sample receiving hormone treatments included participants up to age 20.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 2 years of medical intervention that started with blockers, mental health remained relatively stable and was on par with the population at large,\u201d the final report says. \u201cThese youth showed no worsening of their mental or emotional health and suicidality decreased from baseline to 24 months. Mean scores on mental health measures remain stable in a clinically non-significant range over two years.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The longstanding argument for advocates of \u201ctransing\u201d minors has been that not doing so could cause depression or suicide among youth.\n<\/p>\n
The report\u2019s release has been long awaited. The New York Times first reported in late 2024 that the study of almost 100 children would not be published because\u00a0Olson-Kennedy feared\u00a0the findings would be \u201cweaponized.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The report said that \u201cat baseline, about half of these youths had clinically concerning scores for depression and anxiety. About two-thirds reported having thoughts of suicide, and about one-quarter reported having attempted suicide.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Though it added that two years showed \u201cincreased scores for life satisfaction,\u201d and decreased levels of depression and anxiety.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe argument has been that this improves mental health,\u201d Dr. Kurt Miceli, the chief medical officer at Do No Harm, which opposes gender changes for children, said. \u201c \u2026 The narrative by advocates has been that this is lifesaving treatment.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He noted that a separate 2023 New England Journal of Medicine article referenced two minors observed in a study who committed suicide.\n<\/p>\n
The recently released study noted that \u201cDenominator for retention (expected visits) does not include participants who withdrew consent, passed away, or have not reached the end of their extended follow-up window.\u201d But it does not say how the youths \u201cpassed away,\u201d Miceli noted.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo suicides were reported in a previous study, but downplayed,\u201d Miceli said. \u201cIt\u2019s important for science and important to patients to know.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Oversight Project Director of State Litigation Neal Cornett said the report confirms what most already know, which is that \u201ctreating troubled youth with puberty blockers and hormone treatments does nothing to improve their mental health.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a country, we should err on the side of caution before embarking on this type of medical intervention with minors,\u201d Cornett told the Daily Signal.\n<\/p>\n
Notably, it was an observational study, so the procedures involving participants as young as 8 years old were not conducted as a result of NIH funding.\n<\/p>\n
The study also found potential affects on youth bone density, reproductive health, and height. Further, the researchers noted they sought \u201cadditional youth of color\u201d to precipitate in the study.\n<\/p>\n
The Oversight Project contends the release of the documents is a good first step, but the public should know more about the \u201cTransgender Industrial Complex\u201d and the medical impacts it\u2019s having on children and adolescents.\n<\/p>\n
This article was originally published at the Daily Signal. Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A taxpayer-funded study of children and young adults taking puberty blockers and hormone treatments found no improvement in youth mental health. The Oversight Project, a watchdog group, obtained the final report of \u201cThe Impact of Early Medical Treatment in Transgender Youth\u201d and shared it with the Daily Signal. The National Institutes of Health first allocated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[3689,855,907,976,703,6072,152,10615,3688,488,1460],"class_list":["post-31833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-blockers","tag-exclusive","tag-failed","tag-finds","tag-health","tag-improve","tag-mental","tag-nihfunded","tag-puberty","tag-study","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}