Health
UK report debunks claim that halting puberty blockers increases suicide in gender-confused youth
From LifeSiteNews
For more than a decade, the transgender movement has used a potent lie to blackmail desperate parents and feckless politicians into accepting their agenda: that if gender-confused children are not provided with sex changes – “gender-affirming care” – they will be at a high risk for suicide. Parent after parent heard the simple, deceitful question, posed to them by trans activist medical professionals: “Would you rather have a dead daughter, or a live son?”
Yet another review highlights that this claim is completely baseless. As the BBC reported on July 20: “There is no evidence of a large rise in suicides in young patients attending a gender identity clinic in London, an independent review has found.”
The report, titled “Review of suicides and gender dysphoria at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust: independent report,” was published by the U.K. government on July 19. Professor Louis Appleby was tasked by Health Secretary Wes Streeting to examine the evidence after LGBT activists claimed that suicide rates were spiking due to restrictions on puberty blockers, which were first implemented in 2020. The review concluded:
- The data do not support the claim that there has been a large rise in suicide in young gender dysphoria patients at the Tavistock.
- The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide.
- The claims that have been placed in the public domain do not meet basic standards for statistical evidence.
- There is a need to move away from the perception that puberty-blocking drugs are the main marker of non-judgemental acceptance in this area of health care.
- We need to ensure high quality data in which everyone has confidence, as the basis of improved safety for this at risk group of young people.
This review is devastating to virtually every single claim trans activists have been making – and Appleby even notes, in point two of his summary, that trans activists themselves are posing a real danger to gender-confused children with their irresponsible lies about suicidality. Suicide, as we have long known, is a social contagion – and trans activists are explicitly encouraging gender-confused children to claim suicidal ideation in order to acquire puberty blockers.
As the BBC reported: “The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was vital that public discussion around the issue was handled responsibly.” It is difficult to read that statement as anything but a direct rebuke of trans activists. Appleby, a professor of psychiatry and experienced suicide researcher from the University of Manchester, warned that trans activist rhetoric could actually lead to adolescents copycatting that behavior. “One risk is that young people and their families will be terrified by predictions of suicide as inevitable without puberty blockers – some of the responses on social media show this,” he said. As the BBC noted:
In response to [trans activist] claims, the new health secretary launched an independent review led by Prof Appleby which analysed data from NHS England on suicides of patients at the Tavistock clinic, based on an audit at the trust.
Covering the period between 2018-19 and 2023-24, he found there were 12 suicides – five in the three years leading up to 2020-21 and seven in the three years afterwards.
‘This is essentially no difference,’ Prof Appleby says in his report, ‘taking account of expected fluctuations in small numbers, and would not reach statistical significance.’
He adds: ‘In the under 18s specifically, there were 3 suicides before and 3 after 2020-21.’
The Good Law Project, run by executive director Jo Maugham, is currently challenging the puberty blocker ban – and predictably, Maugham expressed his disagreement with the review, saying that he had “profound difficulties” with it. It likely will make little difference. In the U.K., the transgender narrative is in tatters – and leaders still parroting these debunked lines should take note.
Alberta
Province says Alberta family doctors will be the best-paid and most patient-focused in the country
Dr. Shelley Duggan, president, Alberta Medical Association
New pay model, better access to family doctors |
Alberta’s government is implementing a new primary care physician compensation model to improve access to family physicians across the province.
Alberta’s government recognizes that family physicians are fundamental to strengthening the health care system. Unfortunately, too many Albertans do not currently have access to regular primary care from a family physician. This is why, last year, the government entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) and committed to developing a new primary care physician compensation model.
Alberta’s government will now be implementing a new compensation model for family doctors to ensure they continue practising in the province and to attract more doctors to choose Alberta, which will also alleviate pressures in other areas of the health care system.
This new model will make Alberta’s family doctors the strongest-paid and most patient-focused in the country.
“Albertans must be able to access a primary care provider. We’ve been working hard with our partners at the Alberta Medical Association to develop a compensation model that will not only support Alberta’s doctors but also improve Albertans’ access to physicians. Ultimately, our deal will make Alberta an even more attractive place to practise family medicine.”
“We have worked with the Alberta Medical Association to address the challenges that primary care physicians are facing. This model will provide the supports physicians need and improve patient access to the care they need.”
The new model is structured to encourage physicians to grow the number of patients they care for and encourage full-time practice. Incentives include increases for:
- Maintaining high panel numbers (minimum of 500 patients), which will incentivize panel growth and improve access to primary care for patients.
- Providing after-hours care to relieve pressure on emergency departments and urgent care centres.
- Improving technology to encourage using tools that help streamline work and enhance patient care.
- Enhancing team-based care, which will encourage developing integrated teams that may include family physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, dietitians and pharmacists to provide patients with the best care possible.
- Adding efficiencies in clinical operations to simplify processes for both patients and health care providers.
As a market and evidence-based model, it recognizes and pays for the critically important work of physicians, including the number of patients seen and patient complexity, as well as time spent providing direct and indirect care.
“Family medicine is the foundation of our health care system. This model recognizes the extensive training, experience and leadership of primary care physicians, and we hope it will help Alberta to attract and retain more family medicine specialists who provide comprehensive care.”
Additionally, family physicians who are not compensated through the traditional fee-for-service model will now receive higher pay rates under their payment model, known as the alternative relationship plan. This includes those who provide inpatient care in hospitals and rural generalists. Alberta’s government is increasing this to ensure hospital-based family physicians and rural generalists also receive fair, competitive pay that reflects the importance of these roles.
“This new compensation model will make Alberta more attractive for physicians and will make sure more Albertans can have improved access to a primary care provider no matter where they live. It will also help support efforts to strengthen primary care in Alberta as the foundation of the health care system.”
“Family physicians have been anxiously awaiting this announcement about the new compensation model. We anticipate this model will allow many primary care physicians to continue to deliver comprehensive, lifelong care to their patients while keeping their community clinics viable.”
Quick facts
- Enrolment in the primary care physician compensation model will begin in January with full implementation in spring 2025, provided there are at least 500 physicians enrolled.
- The alternative relationship plan rate has not been updated since it was initially calculated in 2002.
- The new compensation model for family doctors is the latest primary health care improvement following actions that include:
- A $42-million investment to recruit more health providers and expand essential services.
- A new rural and remote bursary program for family medicine resident physicians.
- Additional funding of $257 million to stabilize primary care delivery and improve access to family physicians.
- Implementing the Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program, which expands the role of nurse practitioners by allowing them to practise comprehensive patient care autonomously, either by operating their own practices or working independently within existing primary care settings.
Related information
From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
During a free-flowing press conference at Mar-a-Lago Monday, Donald Trump mentioned the sharp rise in autism in recent decades, adding that he has experts ‘looking to find out’ if vaccines may be the cause.
Donald Trump is doubling down on his intention to study a possible link between vaccines and autism in children.
During a free-flowing press conference at Mar-a-Lago Monday, the incoming president said there are “problems” with the massive increase in autism cases in America over the past several decades and that he intends to get to the bottom of it.
“30 years ago, we had, I’ve heard numbers like 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000. Now I’m hearing numbers like 1 in 100. So, something’s wrong … and we’re going to find out about it,” he said.
Trump’s remarks come just days after he told MSNBC anchor Kristen Welker that his choice to lead the Heath and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will be tasked with investigating the matter.
“Certain vaccines are incredible but maybe some aren’t, and if they aren’t, we have to find out … the drug companies are going to be working with RFK Jr,” he said.
During COVID-19, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny joined a LifeSiteNews panel discussion on the science regarding the COVID shots. She warned that the experimental injections do not even qualify for the term “vaccine.”
“I refuse to call it a vaccine because it doesn’t meet any of the standards by which a vaccine is supposed to work,” she said.
In October 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) unanimously voted 15-0 to add COVID-19 shots to the U.S. childhood, adolescent and adult vaccine schedules.
Dr. Tenpenny warned about the dangers of the current vaccination schedule while attending the world premier of The Great Awakening documentary in June 2023.
“If a child gets all of the vaccines in the entire schedule, they get almost 13,000 micrograms of aluminum, and they get almost 600 micrograms of mercury, plus over 200 different chemicals,” she said. “So that’s why they’ve never been proven to be safe.”
The upcoming 2025 Immunization Schedule approved by the CDC now recommends 36 vaccinations for children from the time they are in their mother’s womb until they are two years old (four doses are given to the pregnant mother while 32 doses are injected in the child from birth to 24 months).
Dr. Simone Gold has called for an investigation into the current vaccination schedule.
“In the 1960’s children received 5 vaccine shots in total. Today, the CDC says that children should receive 72 vaccine shots, a majority of them before the age of 6. The CDC is known for corruptly advancing Big Pharma interests. This schedule needs to be investigated further,” she said on X in September.
The CDC currently advises children to receive 70 doses before they turn 18. This is a massive increase from the 1980s, when they received 24 doses. Many medical freedom activists blame the explosion in shots on the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which gave vaccine makers legal protection from any harm their products inflict on those who receive them.
Doctors and medical freedom activists, including RFK Jr., have long maintained that the massive uptick in autism in recent decades is likely due to the increases in vaccines for children.
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