Thread on the #keirabell judgement and sorry state of evidence-lead health policy in New Zealand.

We have further confirmation that there is no good evidence of benefit from puberty blockers, and significant risks.

1/11

The judges heard evidence for and against, and testimony from former patients. They ruled that puberty blocking is "experimental", with "very limited evidence as to its efficacy"

An unsurprising finding if you're familiar with the literature.

2/11
This is a continuation of the findings from the national health body reviews from Sweden and Finland. Both find that evidence is insufficient.

3/11

https://t.co/SdNHXYPiCT
A review by the Center for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University highlighted the "profound scientific ignorance" on the the use of puberty blockers

4/11

https://t.co/jTnu4jfuUt
A 2018 review by an Australian expert group finds that all studies on the psych effects of puberty blockers have a medium or high risk of bias.

5/11

https://t.co/7L5dLrr5Zo
Ok, what about New Zealand?
Dr Jeannie Oliphant is the lead author of NZ guidelines. She described puberty blockers as "the gold standard for young people." and claims that "we are using puberty blockers very freely up until about till about 20".

6/11

https://t.co/DAeIpJqqCB
The NZ guidelines cite a *single* highly biased study (de Vries et al., 2014) and then claim that puberty blocking is supported by "good evidence"

7/11

https://t.co/pch96L8gVC
The lead author of the original study (de Vries) now believes puberty suppression is not always appropriate.

She believes psychosocial support may be more appropriate for children who have recent dysphoria

8/11

https://t.co/cgHf23gCCS
New Zealand children have the right to not be subject to medical experimentation. Health authorities must uphold the right to informed consent and provide psychosocial support.

9/11
If you know doctors and parents who are considering blocking a child's normal puberty, please forward them the judgement

10/11

https://t.co/nCsHJRhZSh
Thread summarised here ->

11/Fin

https://t.co/N3SdEm0sCK

More from Law

Some WESC submissions that are worth a read....(my thread of bookmarks)

Judge Paula Grey is president of the Gender Recognition Panel

She doesn't make any recommendations, but she sets out how the process currently works

Which chimes with my analysis of the GRP User Panel and statistics
https://t.co/XixEz7lNJv

She is also co-author if the Equal Treatment Bench Book and writes about how the judges are trained by Gendered Intelligence


There is the government's own response

https://t.co/bOn9XecAkz

On single sex spaces they say the law is clear that service providers are able to restrict access to spaces on the basis of biological sex where there is clear justification.


The response from @womensaid is significant.

Their members want trans survivors to get support they need but not by undermining their ability to serve women with female staff & female only services

They highlight lack of clarity

https://t.co/p7096sZcos


This was their position in 2015

They have moved on alot - they have been consulting with members since last year, and have had the courage to say what their members told them, not what Stonewall wanted to

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