Wes Streeting has been urged by cross-party MPs to pause an NHS trial into puberty blockers for youngsters. In a letter to the Health Secretary, the group warn that going forward with the controversial examine can be a “dangerous mistake”.
They add that it may “devastate the physical, psychological, sexual and reproductive health of over 200 vulnerable children, leaving them medically dependent for life”. It comes because the well being service is because of begin recruiting youngsters as younger as eight for the medical trial into puberty blockers.
But the letter, coordinated by impartial MP Rosie Duffield, calls on the Government to reply a sequence of “basic questions” earlier than it proceeds.
They elevate issues over whether or not the children are able to giving knowledgeable consent to participate and the way parental consent can be obtained in instances the place dad and mom might really feel below stress or have totally different views to their youngsters.
The MPs additionally ask why a examine has not first been achieved to have a look at the impression of puberty blockers on youngsters who’ve already acquired them.
The letter provides: “The first duty of any clinician is to do no harm. This trial risks causing foreseeable harm to a new cohort of vulnerable children.”
It is signed by Labour MP Jonathan Hinder, Tories Tom Tugendhat and Rebecca Paul, Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin, impartial MPs Rupert Lowe and Iqbal Mohamed, and Lib Dem peer Baroness Ludford.
It comes after Tory chief Kemi Badenoch final month known as for the medical trial to be halted, whereas it has additionally been condemned by gender-critical campaigners.
The trial is being undertaken following a advice by the Cass Review into youngsters’s gender care, which concluded that the standard of analysis claiming to indicate the advantages of such medicine for kids with gender dysphoria was “poor”.
Puberty blockers should not prescribed on the NHS to youngsters for the therapy of gender dysphoria, after a ban earlier final yr was made everlasting in December 2024.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care mentioned: “The bar for the UK clinical trial to be approved is extremely high, with the Pathways trial going through rigorous rounds of scientific, clinical, ethical and regulatory review.
“Dr Hilary Cass herself has welcomed this trial, with participation only eligible after rigorous checks and robust safeguards are in place, which includes national clinical multidisciplinary review and parental consent. This government recognises the importance for scrutiny and debate on such an important issue.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2143339/wes-streeting-puberty-blocker-trial