Thread by @rorybowman

Chad Terhune, Robin Respaut, and Michelle Online, 2022. Youth in Transition: As more transgender children seek medical care, families confront many unknowns. Reuters Special Report, reuters.com/investigates/s…, 6 October 2022.

"Puberty blockers and sex hormones do not have U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for children’s gender care. No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs’ long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear."

“The National Institutes of Health, the U.S. government agency responsible for medical and public health research, told Reuters that 'the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents.'”

"Reliable national data on how many children receive care for gender dysphoria – defined as a feeling of distress from identifying as a gender different from the one assigned at birth – have long been unavailable."

reuters.com/investigates/s…

"[Komodo Health's US insurance claim] analysis, the first of its kind, found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the five years to the end of 2021. More than 42,000 of those children were diagnosed just last year, up 70% from 2020."

#WPATH #SOC8 "notes the paucity of research supporting the long-term effectiveness of medical treatment for adolescents with gender dysphoria. As a result, the guidelines say, “a systematic review regarding outcomes of treatment in adolescents is not possible.”

"The Endocrine Society, in its own guidelines, acknowledges the 'low' or 'very low' certainty of evidence supporting its recommendations."

"In interviews with Reuters, doctors and other staff at 18 gender clinics across the country described their processes for evaluating patients. None described anything like the months-long assessments de Vries and her colleagues adopted in their research."
reuters.com/investigates/s…

"The issue of assessments is complicated by a chronic shortage of mental-health professionals for children that has only worsened amid soaring rates of depression, anxiety, mood disorders and self harm nationwide."

reuters.com/investigates/s…

"Reuters interviewed parents of 39 minors who had sought gender-affirming care. Parents of 28 of those children said they felt pressured or rushed to proceed with treatment."

reuters.com/investigates/s…

28/39 = 72%

"Miller and several other doctors told Reuters they had repeatedly asked AbbVie, Endo and other makers of puberty blockers to seek FDA approval for the drugs in treating gender dysphoria in children and to conduct clinical trials to establish the drugs’ safety for such use…

“… They said the companies always declined. 'They would say it would cost a lot of money to get approval,' Miller said. 'And they were not interested in going there because (transgender treatment) was a political hot potato.'”

reuters.com/investigates/s…

"As prescriptions of puberty blockers increase for off-label gender care, the drugmakers are making cheaper alternatives harder to get."

reuters.com/investigates/s…

"They said insurers sometimes insist on the pediatric version, priced at more than $10,000…"