Gender clinic researcher admits withholding results due to politics. Facts are facts | Opinion
Reporters and scientists have a lot in common. While methods differ, at the core, both are a craft of searching for facts, often stubbornly hidden, and sharing those facts with the world. In theory, more facts lead to more truth and to a better world.
Scientists and journalists do a lot of damage to themselves when they put the making “a better world” part of their endeavor before the finding and sharing facts part.
You could see that on full display this year when many Washington journalists seemed more concerned with fact-checking Republican complaints that President Joe Biden was losing his marbles, than uncovering the stubbornly hidden fact that Biden was losing his marbles.
When it suddenly became obvious that Republicans were right after a disastrous debate performance, the consequences were swift as the political world whirred into action to sweep Biden off the stage. Journalists, who get swept into an undifferentiated herd in the mind of too much of the public, were left with a credibility problem.
I worked in Washington for 25 years and I can tell you that the fear of helping Donald Trump was a real part of why so many of us balked at being the first to report Biden was losing a step. When The Wall Street Journal put Republican allegations on the front page, the criticism from other journalists as well as professional Democrats was blistering.
But journalism and science are not popularity contests. Facts are facts, regardless of whether they will earn us the grateful thanks of the public.
Transgender medicine research
Today, medical science is in the midst of a longer and far-larger credibility collapse. Last week, a new crack appeared in the edifice of transgender medicine. Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a senior researcher at the nation’s largest youth gender clinic at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, the leader of a $10 million effort to understand whether puberty blockers and hormones improve the mental health of kids as young as 8 with gender dysphoria, has admitted she is withholding the results of a federally-funded study because of politics.
“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” she said about why she has not published results that show the treatments do no good while leaving behind lasting side effects such as sexual dysfunction. The study where participants’ average age was 11 included nearly 100 children and teens — a small study, but still bigger than the Dutch study used to justify the treatments in the first place.
Dr. Olsen-Kennedy insisted on mischaracterizing the kids in the study as well. Today she chirps, “They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years.” That’s not what researchers said before. About 30% percent suffered depression, 20% anxiety, about a quarter had thought about suicide and 8% reported an attempt at suicide. “In really good shape,” they are not. After two years of treatment, their mental health problems remain.
More delays in publishing studies
This isn’t the first time key researchers have hidden results displeasing to LGBTQ+ ideologues. A 2011 study on the same subject in Britain was long finished in 2016 when it was described at a conference, but not made public until 2020. England’s youth gender clinic research also found that medical interventions did not help the mental health of children with gender dysphoria.
Puberty blockers are not a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for gender dysphoria. It is an experimental treatment that uses drugs “off-label.” Nevertheless, thousands of children were on the drugs as of reports from 2022 after having doubled over the last few years. There is no reason to think the growth in that population has stopped. This year a database that likely undercounts the popularity of such interventions because it only records those covered by insurance reported that nearly 9,000 minors had received such treatment in recent years.
According to the most recent data even more radical interventions including surgeries are being performed on thousands of kids in the United States.
But sanity is breaking out. Earlier this year, the British National Health Service ended such treatments in the country except in controlled experimental trials. An independent review had found that the science backing puberty blockers, hormone treatment and surgeries was sketchy at best. In August, the first important medical association backed away from the surgeries.
Meanwhile the Biden-Harris administration is doubling down. Earlier this year, the administration tried to remove all age limits on surgeries to remove breasts from girls designated at birth, and genitalia of either sex.
Some time soon the whole structure is going to collapse and we’re finally going to be able to have open conversations about the issue and how we help children who are clearly suffering. As it does, the credibility of science itself will come into question as its practitioners are revealed to have put politics before their job of finding facts and helping children in distress.
Maybe that debate can happen on the pages of newspapers, helping rebuild their credibility in the eyes of a wary public. After all, it was a newspaper — The New York Times — that uncovered this latest hidden research. Reporters seeking facts are a powerful tool to bring accountability to those who’d rather operate without scrutiny. Like honest scientists, we need more reporters who will fearlessly, even heedlessly, follow the facts.
This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 6:05 AM with the headline "Gender clinic researcher admits withholding results due to politics. Facts are facts | Opinion."
