This "experiment" has already been done, in real lives. It is unforgiveable and unfathomable that the patients already treated cannot be found, interviewed, and their responses recorded. These new "patients" are nothing but two-legged guinea pigs.
They are not even "guinea pigs" in the usual sense of that phrase (an unethical experiment may still yield useful results), but rather lambs to the slaughter.
Yes, you’re right, but there is 10,000,000 British pounds involved… not chicken feed.Someone is profiting….might be good to know who is getting the blood money.
When I first heard about the study I thought I must be reading it wrong. The only difference between the two groups was a year’s delay of onset of treatment? How does that NOT get completely lost in all the confounding factors? Sheesh.
And why is no one citing the Swedish study of death records, which found the rate of death by suicide in post op natal females is 40 TIMES higher than age matched controls and the rate of the same by post op natal males is 18 times higher than age matched controls? This was carried out by Cecelia Dhejne, et al at the Karolinska Institute and published in 2011, with information from the health records of thousands of patients who had the "reassignment" surgeries from 1973 to 2003. Dhejne et al found the data on females so alarming that when they published it, they folded males and females together to arrive at 19 times higher rate of death by suicide. It was Dr. Stephen B. Levine who later got the raw data and found this glaring result on the females, incorporating it into his webpages of expert witness testimony in the process of Florida and other states outlawing "affirmative care" for minors. Sweden reversed course, ending the policy of giving blockers to minors, after the documentary Trans Train came out.
You bring up many good points- especially " PATHWAYS is therefore £10.7 million spent to partially re-create some of that data we already possess but have deliberately chosen not to examine. " I feel as though we are all shouting into the wind. The two year follow up is laughable; especially considering people who choose hormones, surgery dont express regret for an average 7 years (statsforgender.org/category/desistance).
I worry we may eventually see studies trying to justify pedophilia is actually beneficial to children
I will never understand why the professional organizations representing psychologists and psychiatrists will not publish acknowledgement of the long-accepted Piaget stages of cognitive development from birth to age 14, his crucial and still relevant concepts, Object Permanence and Conservation of Matter, and thus, simply shine some light on the claims of trans ideologues (like the odious Helen Webberley, suddenly appearing all over the place to quash debate and self-promote her hormone-peddling enterprise) and counter the absolutely false claim that a child "knows its in the wrong body since birth" if gender dysphoria is later diagnosed.
>"Any improvement in quality-of-life scores can therefore be attributed to the counseling, to placebo effects, to regression to the mean, or simply to the relief of finally being taken seriously. We will never know which. . . . The trial has no mechanism for disentangling the two. It is rather like testing a new analgesic by giving every patient in the study the drugs and a daily massage and then wondering if the massage or the pills reduce the pain. "
I think this is an incorrect criticism. As you say, the drug is the only thing that moves. That's how any randomized controlled trial works: all subjects get (or are offered) all the same supportive and adjunctive treatments in normal clinical practice. The only thing different is the drug being tested. This trial is not at all analogous to giving everyone in a pain study the analgesic drugs and a massage. At least in the first year of the proposed trial, the control group gets only the adjunctive treatment; the treatment group gets the adjunctive treatment plus the puberty blocker. In that first year, any changes in an individual subject could be due to anything. But any *differences* between the two groups in that first year, subject to the usual statistical variation, can be ascribed to the drug. (Because the trial isn't, and can't be, blinded, placebo effects and the satisfaction of getting what you want will likely swamp any "real" effects of the drug. But that's a separate issue.)
It's certainly true that letting the control group have the puberty blocker in the second year makes this trial something of a charade. All they are comparing is the effect of delaying a desired treatment for a year, the nocebo effect as you point out. I'm not objecting to any criticism you make of this awful trial. It's just that you mis-state the design flaw as not being a randomized controlled trial in the first place. It is, in the first year at least, albeit not blinded.
There is an additional objection: No one is treated with puberty blockers for two (or one) year and then stopped to let own-sex puberty resume (unless the subject wants to stop, of course, and can't be talked into continuing.) No, we know almost everyone starts wrong-sex hormones to *prevent* the "wrong" puberty from resuming. So that's what's going to happen in this trial. The subjects will be evaluated -- outcomes in the immediate puberty blocker group taking it for two years will be compared to those in the delayed group who took it for only one -- and then the subjects will be scattered to the four winds to take hormones for the rest of their lives and have surgery under usual clinical practice outside the purview of the trial. Some might even want to stay on PBs for some time after the trial ends. All you'll get from this study is the ultra-short-term psychological effects of starting this whole folly a year later.
Children used as guinea pigs that will be sacrificed later one way or another! This is the pathological pathway of the trans movement. … a huge medical and pharmaceutical scandal that has also been highly profitable.
I don’t know if I have the correct information, but in the PATHWAY TRIAL site they have an additional study:
“The PATHWAYS programme will follow and compare two groups: one group of young people taking part in PATHWAYS TRIAL, who are receiving puberty suppressing hormones, and another group called PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE, who are not receiving puberty suppressing hormones.”
The PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE is a subset of the PATHWAY HORIZONS observational study.
It is not clear if the participants on the PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE study will receive the new psychosocial package as the participants in the PATHWAYS TRIAL.
If this information is correct, and they are comparing young people in puberty blockers with young people who are not receiving them (albeit in a completely separate observational study), does it change the value of this programme as a whole?
(“PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE will explore the physical, social and
emotional wellbeing of young people who are not receiving puberty suppressing
hormones. Another part of the PATHWAYS programme- PATHWAYS TRIAL will explore
the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of young people who are receiving puberty
This "experiment" has already been done, in real lives. It is unforgiveable and unfathomable that the patients already treated cannot be found, interviewed, and their responses recorded. These new "patients" are nothing but two-legged guinea pigs.
They are not even "guinea pigs" in the usual sense of that phrase (an unethical experiment may still yield useful results), but rather lambs to the slaughter.
Yes, you’re right, but there is 10,000,000 British pounds involved… not chicken feed.Someone is profiting….might be good to know who is getting the blood money.
When I first heard about the study I thought I must be reading it wrong. The only difference between the two groups was a year’s delay of onset of treatment? How does that NOT get completely lost in all the confounding factors? Sheesh.
And why is no one citing the Swedish study of death records, which found the rate of death by suicide in post op natal females is 40 TIMES higher than age matched controls and the rate of the same by post op natal males is 18 times higher than age matched controls? This was carried out by Cecelia Dhejne, et al at the Karolinska Institute and published in 2011, with information from the health records of thousands of patients who had the "reassignment" surgeries from 1973 to 2003. Dhejne et al found the data on females so alarming that when they published it, they folded males and females together to arrive at 19 times higher rate of death by suicide. It was Dr. Stephen B. Levine who later got the raw data and found this glaring result on the females, incorporating it into his webpages of expert witness testimony in the process of Florida and other states outlawing "affirmative care" for minors. Sweden reversed course, ending the policy of giving blockers to minors, after the documentary Trans Train came out.
Nothing like human experiments! Who cares what happens to these kids later in life? This is abominable!
You bring up many good points- especially " PATHWAYS is therefore £10.7 million spent to partially re-create some of that data we already possess but have deliberately chosen not to examine. " I feel as though we are all shouting into the wind. The two year follow up is laughable; especially considering people who choose hormones, surgery dont express regret for an average 7 years (statsforgender.org/category/desistance).
I worry we may eventually see studies trying to justify pedophilia is actually beneficial to children
Some people are already calling pedophilia MAP ( Minor Attracted People) ….!,and they want to make it acceptable. Next : rape is OK , too.
I totally disagree that this experiment is "theater".
This experiment is in the UK so it's "theatre".
I will never understand why the professional organizations representing psychologists and psychiatrists will not publish acknowledgement of the long-accepted Piaget stages of cognitive development from birth to age 14, his crucial and still relevant concepts, Object Permanence and Conservation of Matter, and thus, simply shine some light on the claims of trans ideologues (like the odious Helen Webberley, suddenly appearing all over the place to quash debate and self-promote her hormone-peddling enterprise) and counter the absolutely false claim that a child "knows its in the wrong body since birth" if gender dysphoria is later diagnosed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5frvzBSSqfk
>"Any improvement in quality-of-life scores can therefore be attributed to the counseling, to placebo effects, to regression to the mean, or simply to the relief of finally being taken seriously. We will never know which. . . . The trial has no mechanism for disentangling the two. It is rather like testing a new analgesic by giving every patient in the study the drugs and a daily massage and then wondering if the massage or the pills reduce the pain. "
I think this is an incorrect criticism. As you say, the drug is the only thing that moves. That's how any randomized controlled trial works: all subjects get (or are offered) all the same supportive and adjunctive treatments in normal clinical practice. The only thing different is the drug being tested. This trial is not at all analogous to giving everyone in a pain study the analgesic drugs and a massage. At least in the first year of the proposed trial, the control group gets only the adjunctive treatment; the treatment group gets the adjunctive treatment plus the puberty blocker. In that first year, any changes in an individual subject could be due to anything. But any *differences* between the two groups in that first year, subject to the usual statistical variation, can be ascribed to the drug. (Because the trial isn't, and can't be, blinded, placebo effects and the satisfaction of getting what you want will likely swamp any "real" effects of the drug. But that's a separate issue.)
It's certainly true that letting the control group have the puberty blocker in the second year makes this trial something of a charade. All they are comparing is the effect of delaying a desired treatment for a year, the nocebo effect as you point out. I'm not objecting to any criticism you make of this awful trial. It's just that you mis-state the design flaw as not being a randomized controlled trial in the first place. It is, in the first year at least, albeit not blinded.
There is an additional objection: No one is treated with puberty blockers for two (or one) year and then stopped to let own-sex puberty resume (unless the subject wants to stop, of course, and can't be talked into continuing.) No, we know almost everyone starts wrong-sex hormones to *prevent* the "wrong" puberty from resuming. So that's what's going to happen in this trial. The subjects will be evaluated -- outcomes in the immediate puberty blocker group taking it for two years will be compared to those in the delayed group who took it for only one -- and then the subjects will be scattered to the four winds to take hormones for the rest of their lives and have surgery under usual clinical practice outside the purview of the trial. Some might even want to stay on PBs for some time after the trial ends. All you'll get from this study is the ultra-short-term psychological effects of starting this whole folly a year later.
Children used as guinea pigs that will be sacrificed later one way or another! This is the pathological pathway of the trans movement. … a huge medical and pharmaceutical scandal that has also been highly profitable.
Orwellian !
I don’t know if I have the correct information, but in the PATHWAY TRIAL site they have an additional study:
“The PATHWAYS programme will follow and compare two groups: one group of young people taking part in PATHWAYS TRIAL, who are receiving puberty suppressing hormones, and another group called PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE, who are not receiving puberty suppressing hormones.”
The PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE is a subset of the PATHWAY HORIZONS observational study.
It is not clear if the participants on the PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE study will receive the new psychosocial package as the participants in the PATHWAYS TRIAL.
If this information is correct, and they are comparing young people in puberty blockers with young people who are not receiving them (albeit in a completely separate observational study), does it change the value of this programme as a whole?
(“PATHWAYS HORIZON INTENSIVE will explore the physical, social and
emotional wellbeing of young people who are not receiving puberty suppressing
hormones. Another part of the PATHWAYS programme- PATHWAYS TRIAL will explore
the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of young people who are receiving puberty
suppressing hormones.)
Thank you.