Read on Twitter
26./ PART 2 : Puberty Blocker Thread. @sjblakemore has shown the brain is radically transformed during the decade and more of adolescence with, for example, activity in the medial prefrontal cortex decreasing. In other words it takes time for our adult brain slowly to emerge.
27./ This is miles from the simple model of the Dutch protocol where adolescence is switched on and off like a tap. Our brains take time to change as our social skills fully reveal themselves. Switching off puberty risks disconnecting kids from their peers and social emotions.
28./ Just as adult body parts take years to grow so do our brain areas. Here's Blakemore again: white matter increases in the brain by just 1% a year during the whole of adolescence. But it doesn't do so as you might imagine by the brain just getting bigger.
29./ Instead the brain undergoes an amazing incremental process called myelination, the steady building up of white fatty matter (myelin) along the neural fibres that carry signals in our brains. It takes over a decade and reaches the decision taking parts of the brain last.
30./ The brain also undergoes wholesale 'synaptic pruning' where up to 50% of neural connections in some areas are lost. This may explain why adults tend to be less 'sensitive' or 'agitated'. We really don't feel many emotions as intensely (thank god:). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3982854/
31./ What are the effects of puberty blockers on this reconstruction of the brain? No one really knows. There have been just a tiny number of studies into the impact of puberty blockers using brain scans and these have focused on 'executive function' or speed of reaction.
32./ So here we are: drugs created as an acceptable form of castration for adult cancer victims, that were used experimentally for unlicensed purposes on padeos are now being handed out to kids after zilcho cognitive research during their crucial period of cognitive development.
33./ This raises a question: are teens equipped to consent to taking these drugs, especially since their brains are in the throes of a revolution? We do know teens take many more risks and understand the consequences less than adults. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/10/beautiful-brains/
34./ Here's another question: non conforming teens often seek out a tribe of fellow LGBTQ+ peers. That's fine but we should be aware this is almost certain to affect their attitude to risk. Teens feel peer pressure viscerally and it really does make them take more risks.
35./ In Lawrence Steinberg & team's seminal experiment teens drive pretty safely in a video simulation...until they're made aware of the presence even in the next room of their mates. Disaster ensues as any parent of a teen might have guessed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075496/
36./ fMRI brain scans show the reward circuitry of the teen brains lighting up. Teens feel a deep almost addictive need for the approval of their peers and it will make them take greater risks. Might this shed light on the impact of social media on girls transitioning?
37./ Who knows? What we do know is the result of animal studies and they raise concerns. When researchers gave young sheep puberty blockers males in particular became more agitated and emotional. https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2012/july/headline_237260_en.html
38./ You might think sheep ...bah, who cares...(sorry bad joke) but remember our friend Andrew V Schally who won the Nobel prize? He made his discoveries about GnRA by studying pig and lamb brains. The sheep researchers didn't stop there. They then designed an ingenious maze....
39./ With this they could test the ability of the sheep to remember their way through the maze to get the reward of food. Even after puberty blockers were stopped and obvious physical effects had 'reversed'...the memory of the sheep was impaired. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453016305595
40./ What the researchers also found was that GnRA seeped into unlikely places and organs througout the young animals' bodies. The idea that GnRH is some discrete magic bullet that only switches off the growth of secondary sex characteristics is absurd.
41./ So does all this mean thousands of doctors, scientists and psychologists worldwide have colluded in a huge experiment on the bodies and brains of young people that's likely to end in exposure, legal cases and scandal? I don't know. But here's what I do know.
42./ Many years ago I worked on the first season of the BBC's 'Trust Me A Doctor' where @drphilhammond reported on the decision by the Royal College of Surgeons to publish data showing how each surgeon compared in terms of outcome. Many surgeons loathed it.
43./ The College was responding to an awful cover up at Bristol Royal Infirmary where over 100 babies had died unnecessarily in the cardiac department due to lax standards (over 20 were brain damaged). The inquiry concluded "children were not a priority". https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/19/stevenmorris
44./ At a more trivial level one of my first docs for C4 was a show about laser eye surgery. We interspersed the science with a series of interviews with leading proponents of the miraculous wonders of laser eye surgery.....all of whom were wearing glasses. Err.....
45./ I'm a huge believer in modern medicine but doctors are a vested interest and sometimes they do the wrong thing. For example studies on the impact of anti-depressants on CHILDREN were wilfully misrepresented. Seroxat made kids MORE suicidal not less. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/16/seroxat-study-harmful-effects-young-people
46./ The company who ran that trial and misreported the results was eventually fined $3Bn. I think I can guess why the manufacturers of GnRH analogues haven't published research of their own into puberty blockers in kids or tried to get them licensed for the purpose.
47./ Some bad science is seemingly well-intentioned. @jack_turban's paper on how puberty blockers supposedly save lives still gets quoted despite the fact the paper did NOT prove they saved lives; and may cause more suicide attempts. Here's my analysis https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1222662489911058432?s=20
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1222662489911058432?s=20
48./ Over the years researchers have tried to estimate the damage that our medical infrastructure can unintentionally inflict on patients. The results are staggering. John Hopkins placed medical errors as the third biggest cause of death in the US. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
49./ As for clinical trials they can be used not to find out the truth but as a way of drumming up interest among potential patients or doctors. I wonder sometimes if that isn't what happens with the "trials" of puberty blockers. Are they just marketing? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/01/bad-science-drug-trials-seeding-trials
50./ If no child should be told they were born in the wrong body why should any child be told their bodies need changed or their brain's development smothered before it has barely begun? A reckoning on puberty blockers is surely on the way. It can't happen soon enough.
