from Transgender Trend
We are disappointed that the judge has refused permission for a full judicial review of the controversial puberty blocker trial. In our view the trial as proposed is unethical, experimental and unsafe. Children as young as 11 will have their critical growth at puberty stopped for two years, introducing medical harm to previously healthy bodies.
The trial will go ahead despite leaving many questions unanswered and public confidence in the medical profession shattered. This is an unprecedented experiment on children who are too young to be able to give full consent.
When the risks are serious and profoundly life-changing and the benefits uncertain it is unethical to experiment on children. The trial as proposed is unlikely in any case to provide answers to the question of benefit and risk. We believe the results of the trial in its current design would almost certainly have been rejected by the Cass Review as low quality evidence.
This trial introduces a new low safety bar and sets a worrying precedent for the protection of children in future medical trials. If this trial is considered compatible with international standards, any medical trial with equally low safety standards can be justified.