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UK report debunks claim that halting puberty blockers increases suicide in gender-confused youth

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

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: 

  1. The data do not support the claim that there has been a large rise in suicide in young gender dysphoria patients at the Tavistock. 
  1. 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. 
  1. The claims that have been placed in the public domain do not meet basic standards for statistical evidence. 
  1. 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. 
  2. 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. 

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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Alberta

Early Success: 33 Nurse Practitioners already working independently across Alberta

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Nurse practitioners expand primary care access

The Alberta government’s Nurse Practitioner Primary Care program is showing early signs of success, with 33 nurse practitioners already practising independently in communities across the province.

Alberta’s government is committed to strengthening Alberta’s primary health care system, recognizing that innovative approaches are essential to improving access. To further this commitment, the Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program was launched in April, allowing nurse practitioners to practise comprehensive patient care autonomously, either by operating their own practices or working independently within existing primary care settings.

Since being announced, the program has garnered a promising response. A total of 67 applications have been submitted, with 56 approved. Of those, 33 nurse practitioners are now practising autonomously in communities throughout Alberta, including in rural locations such as Beaverlodge, Coaldale, Cold Lake, Consort, Morley, Picture Butte, Three Hills, Two Hills, Vegreville and Vermilion.

“I am thrilled about the interest in this program, as nurse practitioners are a key part of the solution to provide Albertans with greater access to the primary health care services they need.”

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Health

To participate in the program, nurse practitioners are required to commit to providing a set number of hours of medically necessary primary care services, maintain a panel size of at least 900 patients, offer after-hours access on weekends, evenings or holidays, and accept walk-in appointments until a panel size reaches 900 patients.

With 33 nurse practitioners practising independently, about 30,000 more Albertans will have access to the primary health care they need. Once the remaining 23 approved applicants begin practising, primary health care access will expand to almost 21,000 more Albertans.

“Enabling nurse practitioners to practise independently is great news for rural Alberta. This is one more way our government is ensuring communities will have access to the care they need, closer to home.”

Martin Long, parliamentary secretary for rural health

“Nurse practitioners are highly skilled health care professionals and an invaluable part of our health care system. The Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program is the right step to ensuring all Albertans can receive care where and when they need it.”

Chelsae Petrovic, parliamentary secretary for health workforce engagement

“The NPAA wishes to thank the Alberta government for recognizing the vital role NPs play in the health care system. Nurse practitioners have long advocated to operate their own practices and are ready to meet the growing health care needs of Albertans. This initiative will ensure that more people receive the timely and comprehensive care they deserve.”

Jennifer Mador, president, Nurse Practitioner Association of Alberta

The Nurse Practitioner Primary Care program not only expands access to primary care services across the province but also enables nurse practitioners to practise to their full scope, providing another vital access point for Albertans to receive timely, high-quality care when and where they need it most.

Quick facts

  • Through the Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program, nurse practitioners receive about 80 per cent of the compensation that fee-for-service family physicians earn for providing comprehensive primary care.
    • Compensation for nurse practitioners is determined based on panel size (the number of patients under their care) and the number of patient care hours provided.
  • Nurse practitioners have completed graduate studies and are regulated by the College of Registered Nurses of Alberta.
  • For the second consecutive year, a record number of registrants renewed their permits with the College of Registered Nurses of Alberta (CRNA) to continue practising nursing in Alberta.
    • There were more than 44,798 registrants and a 15 per cent increase in nurse practitioners.
  • Data from the Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program show:
    • Nine applicants plan to work on First Nations reserves or Metis Settlements.
    • Parts of the province where nurse practitioners are practising: Calgary (12), Edmonton (five), central (six), north (three) and south (seven).
  • Participating nurse practitioners who practise in eligible communities for the Rural, Remote and Northern Program will be provided funding as an incentive to practise in rural or remote areas.
  • Participating nurse practitioners are also eligible for the Panel Management Support Program, which helps offset costs for physicians and nurse practitioners to provide comprehensive care as their patient panels grow.

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Addictions

BC Addictions Expert Questions Ties Between Safer Supply Advocates and For-Profit Companies

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By Liam Hunt

Canada’s safer supply programs are “selling people down the river,” says a leading medical expert in British Columbia. Dr. Julian Somers, director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University, says that despite the thin evidence in support of these experimental programs, the BC government has aggressively expanded them—and retaliated against dissenting researchers.

Somers also, controversially, raises questions about doctors and former health officials who appear to have gravitated toward businesses involved in these programs. He notes that these connections warrant closer scrutiny to ensure public policies remain free from undue industry influence.

Safer supply programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free addictive drugs—typically 8-milligram tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin—to dissuade addicts from accessing riskier street substances. Yet, a growing number of doctors say these programs are deeply misguided—and widely defrauded.

Ultimately, Somers argues, safer supply is exacerbating the country’s addiction crisis.

Somers opposed safer supply at its inception and openly criticized its nationwide expansion in 2020. He believes these programs perpetuate drug use and societal disconnection and fail to encourage users to make the mental and social changes needed to beat addiction. Worse yet, the safer supply movement seems rife with double standards that devalue the lives of poorer drug users. While working professionals are provided generous supports that prioritize recovery, disadvantaged Canadians are given “ineffective yet profitable” interventions, such as safer supply, that “convey no expectation that stopping substance use or overcoming addiction is a desirable or important goal.”

To better understand addiction, Somers created the Inter-Ministry Evaluation Database (IMED) in 2004, which, for the first time in BC’s history, connected disparate information—i.e. hospitalizations, incarceration rates—about vulnerable populations.

Throughout its existence, health experts used IMED’s data to create dozens of research projects and papers. It allowed Somers to conduct a multi-million-dollar randomized control trial (the “Vancouver at Home” study) that showed that scattering vulnerable people into regular apartments throughout the city, rather than warehousing them in a few buildings, leads to better outcomes at no additional cost.

In early 2021, Somers presented recommendations drawn from his analysis of the IMED to several leading officials in the B.C. government. He says that these officials gave a frosty reception to his ideas, which prioritized employment, rehabilitation, and social integration over easy access to drugs. Shortly afterwards, the government ordered him to immediately and permanently delete the IMED’s ministerial data.

Somers describes the order as a “devastating act of retaliation” and says that losing access to the IMED effectively ended his career as a researcher. “My lab can no longer do the research we were doing,” he noted, adding that public funding now goes exclusively toward projects sympathetic to safer supply. The B.C. government has since denied that its order was politically motivated.

In early 2022, the government of Alberta commissioned a team of researchers, led by Somers, to investigate the evidence base behind safer supply. They found that there was no empirical proof that the experiment works, and that harm reduction researchers often advocated for safer supply within their studies even if their data did not support such recommendations.

Somers says that, after these findings were published, his team was subjected to a smear campaign that was partially organized by the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU), a powerful pro-safer supply research organization with close ties to the B.C. government. The BCCSU has been instrumental in the expansion of safer supply and has produced studies and protocols in support of it, sometimes at the behest of the provincial government.

Somers is also concerned about the connections between some of safer supply’s key proponents and for-profit drug companies.

He notes that the BCCSU’s founding executive director, Dr. Evan Wood, became Chief Medical Officer at Numinus Wellness, a publicly traded psychedelic company, in 2020. Similarly, Dr. Perry Kendall, who also served as a BCCSU executive director, went on to found Fair Price Pharma, a now-defunct for-profit company that specializes in providing pharmaceutical heroin to high-risk drug users, the following year.

While these connections are not necessarily unethical, they do raise important questions about whether there is enough industry regulation to minimize potential conflicts of interest, whether they be real or perceived.

The BCCSU was also recently criticized in an editorial by Canadian Affairs, which noted that the organization had received funding from companies such as Shoppers Drug Mart and Tilray (a cannabis company). The editorial argued that influential addiction research organizations should not receive drug industry funding and reported that Alberta founded its own counterpart to the BCCSU in August, known as the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, which is legally prohibited from accepting such sponsorships.

Already, private interests are betting on the likely expansion of safer supply programs. For instance, Safe Supply Streaming Co., a publicly traded venture capital firm, has advertised to potential investors that B.C.’s safer supply system could create a multi-billion-dollar annual market.

Somers believes that Canada needs more transparency regarding how for-profit companies may be directly or indirectly influencing policy makers: “We need to know exactly, to the dollar, how much of [harm reduction researchers’] operating budget is flowing from industry sources.”

Editor’s note: This story is published in syndication with Break The Needle and Western Standard.

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Dr. Julian M. Somers is director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University. He was Director of the UBC Psychology Clinic, and past president of the BC Psychological Association. Liam Hunt is a contributing author to the Centre For Responsible Drug Policy in partnership with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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