A year ago the Ministry of Health announced it was
considering additional safety measures and
further restriction of puberty blockers (GnRH) to
treat conditions related to “gender distress” in
children.
This, in the wake findings of the damning
final UK Cass Report, released in April 2024 after four
years of study, which found young people had been given
life-changing, irreversible treatment despite “remarkably
weak” evidence of safety or effectiveness.
The
Ministry of Health consulted on safety measures for the use
of puberty blockers in gender-related health following the
release of the evidence brief. This consultation closed 20
January.
At the time we said it was too little and too
late, says Women’s Rights Party Co-leader Jill Ovens.
“Here we are, after a further delay of almost a year, the
Government has announced there will be no new prescribing of
puberty blockers as of 19 December.”
In response to
all those commentators, including health professionals such
as Dr Sue Bagshaw, saying politicians should not be making
such decisions, the Women’s Rights Party has been
questioning for more than a year what is going on within the
Ministry of Health?
“The Ministry’s
‘consultation’ framing was very odd, given no safety
measures had been in place, and the use of puberty blockers
(GnRH) to treat conditions related to ‘gender distress’
is not a registered use of the hormones, and therefore
isn’t allowed.”
Puberty blockers are licensed only
for use in young children (for precocious puberty) or older
adults (for certain cancers and endometriosis). Use of
puberty blockers for gender incongruence or distress is not
currently licensed, which means the safety and risk
implications for use with gender dysphoria have not been
assessed. Nor has the treatment’s effectiveness been
proven in this context.
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Ms Ovens says the Ministry has
failed to provide leadership, and the Government has had to
step in to effectively ban the use of the hormones, pending
a UK study that has yet to meet ethical approval and is
looking at 2031 for completion.
“New Zealand health
authorities have been held hostage to a vocal minority who
have been putting our children’s health at risk of
lifelong irreversible damage,” she says.
“The
Ministry was not basing its advice on medical and
professional evidence, despite the fact that its own review
a year ago found a lack of good quality evidence for the
effectiveness or safety of puberty blocking treatment in
young people with gender dysphoria.”
Ms Ovens says
at one stage, the Ministry of Health quietly removed a claim
from its website stating that puberty blockers were “safe
and reversible”, yet the Ministry continued to prevaricate
on its duty to provide leadership across the health system.
“So it is a bit rich for people who should know better to
blame the Government for stepping up.”
More than a
year ago, Pharmac data that excluded young children and
older adults (i.e. includes only 12-17 year olds) showed an
alarming increase in the use of such medicines from 2014 to
2022, which could only be off-label to treat adolescents
presenting with gender-related distress.
The use of
puberty blockers for such children is relatively new. Until
the emergence of ‘the Dutch Protocol’, which set
criteria for use of puberty blockers in gender medicine,
treatment of a small number of mainly pre-pubertal boys had
been therapeutic.
From 2014, puberty blockers were
given to a broader group of patients who would not have met
the inclusion criteria of the original protocol; notably
adolescent girls.
The Women’s Rights Party says the
unquestioning use of puberty blockers for the rapidly
expanding cohort of adolescent girls already experiencing
puberty was a dereliction of medical ethics akin to the
‘Unfortunate Experiment’ carried out on women with
cervical cancer in the 1980s.
“This should have been
of considerable concern in light of follow-up studies dating
as far back as 2008, showing that childhood criteria may
‘scoop in’ girls who are unlikely to persist with gender
dysphoria into adulthood, and are more likely than the
general female population to be lesbian or
bisexual.”
As Cass reported: “Puberty is an
intense period of rapid change and can be a difficult
process, where young people are vulnerable to mental health
problems, particularly girls. Unwelcome bodily changes and
experiences can be uncomfortable for all young people, but
this can be particularly distressing for young neurodiverse
people who may struggle with the sensory
changes.”
The Women’s Rights Party supports a
holistic approach that looks at other conditions often found
in young people presenting with “gender distress”,
including ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), body dysmorphia
(includes eating disorders such as anorexia), and sexual
abuse.
