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U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting
Government officials said the medication poses an "unacceptable safety risk," but study often referenced by British officials about the treatment has come under criticism.
The United Kingdom has imposed an indefinite ban on the use of puberty blockers to treat transgender youth.
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U.K. officials had issued a temporary emergency ban on the medication in May, after its National Health Service stopped routinely prescribing them for gender dysphoria in March. They made this ban indefinite Wednesday. The NHS will not prescribe them, and restrictions on prescription by private health care providers will continue as well.
Those who are already on puberty blockers can stay on them, and so can people who are in clinical trials or those taking puberty blockers for a purpose other than gender transition, such as early-onset puberty. The U.K. will not allow the sale and supply of the medicines from prescribers registered in the European Economic Area or Switzerland for any reason to those under 18.
Even though such treatment is supported by major medical organizations around the world, U.K. leaders say there are concerns about the safety and effectiveness of puberty blockers, based on Dr. Hilary Cass’s review of research. All major medical associations in the U.S. support such treatment.
“Children’s health care must always be evidence-led,” U.K. Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said in a press release. “The independent expert Commission on Human Medicines found that the current prescribing and care pathway for gender dysphoria and incongruence presents an unacceptable safety risk for children and young people.”
“Dr. Cass’s review also raised safety concerns around the lack of evidence for these medical treatments,” he continued. “We need to act with caution and care when it comes to this vulnerable group of young people and follow the expert advice.”
Health officials are setting up a clinical trial of puberty blockers for next year and “are working with NHS England to open new gender identity services, so people can access holistic health and wellbeing support they need,” Streeting added.
“Puberty blockers are powerful drugs with unproven benefits and significant risks, and that is why I recommended that they should only be prescribed following a multi-disciplinary assessment and within a research protocol,” Cass said in the release.
“I support the government’s decision to continue restrictions on the dispensing of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria outside the NHS where these essential safeguards are not being provided.”
However, the Cass review has been criticized. “The review dismissed over 100 studies on the efficacy of transgender care as not suitably high quality, applying standards that are unattainable and not required of most other pediatric medicine,” Erin Reed wrote in her Erin in the Morning column, republished by The Advocate.
“The Cass Review seems to have emulated the Florida Review, which employed a similar method to justify bans on trans care in the state — a process criticized as politically motivated by the Human Rights Campaign,” Reed continued. “Notably, Hilary Cass met with Patrick Hunter, a member of the anti-trans Catholic Medical Association who played a significant role in the development of the Florida Review and Standards of Care under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.”
A court challenge to the U.K.’s temporary ban failed in July.
