Health
Doctor withholds results of study that fails to show transitioning improves kids’ health
From LifeSiteNews
A prominent doctor has been refusing to release the findings of a federally funded “transgender youth” study she began in 2015 because the results did not match the conclusions she hoped for, according to an explosive report in The New York Times.
The Times reported that Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Trans Youth Health & Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, “recruited 95 children from across the country and gave them puberty blockers,” then “followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health.” She told the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that she expected to find that the kids would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time.”
However, the study did not show the children doing better than they started. “Before receiving the drugs, around one-quarter of the group reported depression symptoms and significant anxiety, and one quarter reported ever having thoughts of suicide,” the Times says. “Eight percent reported a past suicide attempt.”
In an interview with the Times, Olson-Kennedy attempted to argue that the children’s starting point actually wasn’t so bad after all, and therefore the lack of change was not concerning: “They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years.” On follow-up, she claimed her “good shape” comment was referring to data averages, and her conclusion about the full data was still pending.
Regardless, in the nine years since the study commenced, Olson-Kennedy has still yet to publish any of the data for outside observers to analyze for themselves, which she justified by claiming, “I do not want our work to be weaponized. It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”
NEW: Azeen Ghorayshi reports in the @nytimes that prominent gender clinician Johanna Olson-Kennedy of @ChildrensLA has refused to publish data from a study on puberty blockers, fearing that the unimpressive results will be "weaponized" by critics of "gender-affirming care." 🧵 pic.twitter.com/DREXSNsFYk
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) October 23, 2024
https://t.co/st0O6ox763 https://t.co/WZbnXv6DO2
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) October 23, 2024
A significant body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often-irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Many oft-ignored “detransitioners,” individuals who attempted to live under a different “gender identity” before embracing their sex, attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion that “transitioning” is the best solution.
“Gender-affirming” physicians have also been caught on video admitting to more old-fashioned motives for such procedures, as with a 2022 exposé about Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health, where Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor said outright that “these surgeries make a lot of money.”
In December, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin considering arguments about the permissibility of state laws prohibiting the gender “transitioning”” of minors.
Alberta
Alberta mother accuses health agency of trying to vaccinate son against her wishes
From LifeSiteNews
Alberta Health Services has been accused of attempting to vaccinate a child in school against his parent’s wishes.
On November 6, Alberta Health Services staffers visited Edmonton Hardisty School where they reportedly attempted to vaccinate a grade 6 student despite his parents signing a form stating that they did not wish for him to receive the vaccines.
“It is clear they do not prioritize parental rights, and in not doing so, they traumatize students,” the boy’s mother Kerri Findling told the Counter Signal.
During the school visit, AHS planned to vaccinate sixth graders with the HPV and hepatitis B vaccines. Notably, both HPV and hepatitis B are vaccines given to prevent diseases normally transmitted sexually.
Among the chief concerns about the HPV vaccine has been the high number of adverse reactions reported after taking it, including a case where a 16 year-old Australian girl was made infertile due to the vaccine.
Additionally, in 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration received reports of 28 deaths associated with the HPV vaccine. Among the 6,723 adverse reactions reported that year, 142 were deemed life-threatening and 1,061 were considered serious.
Children whose parents had written “refused” on their forms were supposed to return to the classroom when the rest of the class was called into the vaccination area.
However, in this case, Findling alleged that AHS staffers told her son to proceed to the vaccination area, despite seeing that she had written “refused” on his form.
When the boy asked if he could return to the classroom, as he was certain his parents did not intend for him to receive the shots, the staff reportedly said “no.” However, he chose to return to the classroom anyway.
Shortly after, he was called into the office and taken back to the vaccination area. Findling said that her son then left the school building and braved the sub-zero temperatures to call his parents.
Following his parents’ arrival at the school, AHS claimed the incident was a misunderstanding due to a “new hire,” attesting that the mistake would have been caught before their son was vaccinated.
“If a student leaves the vaccination center without receiving the vaccine, it should be up to the parents to get the vaccine at a different time, if they so desire, not the school to enforce vaccination on behalf of AHS,” Findling declared.
Findling’s story comes just a few months after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith promised a new Bill of Rights affirming “God-given” parental authority over children.
A draft version of a forthcoming Alberta Bill of Rights provided to LifeSiteNews includes a provision beefing up parental rights, declaring the “freedom of parents to make informed decisions concerning the health, education, welfare and upbringing of their children.”
Addictions
Ontario to restrict Canadian government’s supervised drug sites, shift focus to helping addicts
From LifeSiteNews
Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government tabled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act that will place into law specific bans on where such drug consumption sites are located.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is making good on a promise to close so-called drug “supervision” sites in his province and says his government will focus on helping addicts get better instead of giving them free drugs.
Ford’s Progressive Conservative government on Monday tabled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act that will place into law specific bans on where such drug consumption sites are located.
Specifically, the new bill will ban “supervised” drug consumption sites from being close to schools or childcare centers. Ten sites will close for now, including five in Toronto.
The new law would prohibit the “establishment and operation of a supervised consumption site at a location that is less than 200 meters from certain types of schools, private schools, childcare centers, Early child and family centers and such other premises as may be prescribed by the regulations.”
It would also in effect ban municipalities and local boards from applying for an “exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) for the purpose of decriminalizing the personal possession of a controlled substance or precursor.”
Lastly, the new law would put strict “limits” on the power municipalities and local boards have concerning “applications respecting supervised consumption sites and safer supply services.”
“Municipalities and local boards may only make such applications or support such applications if they have obtained the approval of the provincial Minister of Health,” the bill reads.
The new bill is part of a larger omnibus bill that makes changes relating to sex offenders as well as auto theft, which has exploded in the province in recent months.
In September, Ford had called the federal government’s lax drug policies tantamount to being the “biggest drug dealer in the entire country” and had vowed to act.
‘No’ new drug sites in Ontario, vows Health Minister
In speaking about the new bill, Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones said the Ford government does not plan to allow municipal requests to the government regarding supervised consumption sites.
“Municipalities and organizations like public health units have to first come to the province because we don’t want them bypassing and getting any federal approval for something that we vehemently disagree with,” Jones told the media on Monday.
She also clarified that “there will be no further safe injection sites in the province of Ontario under our government.”
Ontario will instead create 19 new intensive addiction recovery to help those addicted to deadly drugs.
Alberta and other provinces have had success helping addicts instead of giving them free drugs.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, deaths related to opioid and other drug overdoses in Alberta fell to their lowest levels in years after the Conservative government began to focus on helping addicts via a recovery-based approach instead of the Liberal-minded, so-called “safe-supply” method.
Despite public backlash with respect to supervised drug consumption sites, Health Canada recently approved 16 more drug consumption sites in Ontario. Ford mentioned in the press conference that each day he gets “endless phone calls about needles being in the parks, needles being by the schools and the daycares,” calling the situation “unacceptable.”
The Liberals claim their “safer supply” program is good because it is “providing prescribed medications as a safer alternative to the toxic illegal drug supply to people who are at high risk of overdose.”
However, studies have shown that these programs often lead an excess of deaths from overdose in areas where they are allowed.
While many of the government’s lax drug policies continue, they have been forced to backpedal on some of their most extreme actions.
After the federal government allowed British Columbia to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, meth and MDMA beginning January 1, 2023, reports of overdoses and chaos began skyrocketing, leading the province to request that Trudeau re-criminalize drugs in public spaces.
A week later, the federal government relented and accepted British Columbia’s request.
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