Free Republic

Rarely did Olivia give her parents cause for concern. An above-average pupil and fond of the outdoors, she was, says her mother, 'a carefree and fairly typical little girl'. But it all changed when she started secondary school. Suddenly life was complicated. She joined as many school clubs and societies as possible, including, at the instigation of a friend, an LGBT discussion group. In the space of months, Olivia, not her real name, solemnly announced to her parents in a series of updates that she was, first, a lesbian, then non-binary, then finally a boy. Her last incarnation followed influence...

Experts are urging caution in the use of life-changing medical treatment for children and adolescents In 2013, the number of children treated annually at the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital gender clinic at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland was 16. In 2021, the number was 724 – a rise of about 4500 percent. This is far from unusual. Across the United States and Europe, the number of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria is exploding. No one really knows why. But many specialised gender clinics are offering them life-changing medical treatment – puberty blockers, sex change hormones, and even “gender...

Great Britain's National Health Service, which is meant to provide “free” universal healthcare , is collapsing under the strain of long wait times, hidden data, and excess deaths.Long held up as the crown jewel of “ socialized healthcare,” the world’s largest government-run system is unraveling.The crisis has led to a surge in excess deaths that has outlasted the coronavirus pandemic, with ambulance and emergency room delays linked to hundreds of deaths each week, leaked internal data suggest . Hospitals already near capacity last fall could not keep pace as the winter flu season took hold.After waiting hours for medical attention,...

Deaths in England and Wales have remained above average post-Covid lockdowns, with NHS delays likely to ‘have had substantial impact’The crisis in the NHS is leading to continued higher-than-usual death levels in England and Wales, experts have said. Figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that almost 170,000 more people than normal died in England and Wales between March 2020, when coronavirus was declared a pandemic, and the end of 2022 – 11% higher than the five-year average. However, the new data also shows that the number of excess deaths has continued, even as the virus’s fatality rate has...

"We're grieving parents. I don't want to see any more grieving parents"The grieving parents of a 20-year-old Northampton amateur footballer have questioned health authorities about the sudden death of their son - and they want answers. Luke Abrahams, from East Hunsbury, died on the operating table at Northampton General Hospital on Sunday, January 23 after first complaining about a sore throat a week before. The former Abbeyfield School student was well-known in the Northants football community, playing for Blisworth FC and Hunsbury Hawks FC and also having associations with AFC Spinney. Dad Richard Abrahams and mum Julie Needham said: "We...

Hannah Marie's heartbroken fiancé had only 10 minutes to say goodbye to herTributes have been paid to an 'amazing' mum-of-three who died just three days before Christmas. Hannah Marie had to wait 11 hours for an ambulance just days before her death. Now her heartbroken fiancé is calling for government intervention before more people lose their lives in the NHS health crisis. Hannah, 36, started to feel unwell on December 18, so partner James Jackman called for an ambulance at 7.20pm. The Mirror reports the ambulance would not arrive at their address until the following morning at 6.15am after it...

England’s National Health Service (NHS) banned puberty blockers for minors outside strict clinical trials and advised against social transitions for kids, arguing that most children who think they’re transgender are going through a phase they will outgrow, according to The Telegraph. The NHS is developing plans to restrict cross-sex medical treatments for children due to “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making,” according to The Telegraph. As England moves to limit transgender medical interventions for children, the Biden administration has been championing child sex changes and publicly criticizing state level efforts to restrict those procedures as harmful to transgender...

The Department of Homeland Security launched a failed operation that ensnared hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. protesters in what new documents show was as a sweeping, power-hungry effort before the 2020 election to bolster President Donald Trump’s spurious claims about a “terrorist organization” he accused his Democratic rivals of supporting.

At least 15 children under the age of four were directed to the NHS's transgender health service in England in the past two years. A similar number of five-year-olds were referred between 2021-2022 to the highly-controversial Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock clinic, the country's only gender identity service for children. NHS documents state that, in total, over 5,000 children were referred to Tavistock's service in the past two years, over concerns they were suffering from their gender identity not matching their biological sex.

Line of Duty actor and campaigner Tommy Jessop investigates why people with a learning disability are more than twice as likely to die from avoidable causes than the rest of the population. He hears from relatives who have lost loved ones prematurely, and from a mother on whose behalf the BBC went to court so she could speak publicly about her fight to get lifesaving care for her son.

“… I am sorry, but if you have voted Conservative, you do not deserve to be resuscitated by the NHS,” former nurse Mirada Hughes declared while ranting to Host Jeremy Vine during a Channel 5 debate titled “Britain on the Brink.” […] … Hughes made the comment while complaining that nurses don’t have enough resources to compassionately care for their patients. […] After being challenged by the incredulous host, Hughes eventually backed off and said that “of course” she would resuscitate a conservative. …

As a clinical psychologist who has been working in NHS services for a decade, I’ve seen first hand how we are failing people by locating their problems within them as some kind of mental disorder or psychological issue, and thereby depoliticising their distress. Will six sessions of CBT, designed to target “unhelpful” thinking styles, really be effective for someone who doesn’t know how they’re going to feed their family for another week? Antidepressants aren’t going to eradicate the relentless trauma a man is surviving in a hostile workplace, and branding people who are enduring sexual violence with a psychiatric disorder...

The socialised healtchare system in England failed to meet its own cancer waiting time target in 98 per cent of areas, analysis has revealed. Only two of the 107 areas in England covered by the National Health System (NHS) met the cancer waiting time target set out by NHS ENgland, which states that no more than fifteen per cent of people who revieced an urgent warning should have to wait more than two months to begin treatment. The analysis of government figures, conducted by Sky News, found that only Bolton and Calderdale, both in West Yorkshire, actually met the target,...

Watchdog group American Transparency is not pleased with how the government is monkeying around with taxpayer dollars. In a review of federal discretionary spending over the past two years, the group discovered a number of federally funded projects such as studies on zombified cats, toilet cameras, and gambling pigeons. Here is a look at some of its most striking findings from the group's annual Where’s The Pork report. $477,121 on transgender monkeys A grant from the National Institutes of Health funded research that involved injecting male monkeys with hormones intended to transform them into female monkeys. The goal of the...

Former prime minister Sir John Major has described the contaminated blood scandal as "incredibly bad luck", drawing gasps from families watching him give evidence under oath to the public inquiry into the disaster. Up to 30,000 people contracted HIV and hepatitis C in the 1970s and 80s after being given blood treatments or transfusions on the NHS. Thousands have since died. Sir John later apologised for his choice of language. He said: "I obviously caused offence inadvertently this morning when I referred to the fact that it was awful that people had been fed infected blood and I referred to...

For Ritchie Herron, a bright and articulate civil servant from Newcastle, life over the past four years has become almost unbearable. It takes him ten minutes to empty his bladder, a process as painful as it is slow. Any sex drive is long gone. In fact, he says, his crotch is numb, ‘shell-shocked’ from the damage done to him under the apparent care of the NHS. ‘Numb’ rather sums up Ritchie’s whole demeanour as he struggles to process what has happened to him. Today he reveals – in an exclusive interview – that he is the man preparing legal action...

As the COVID pandemic unfolded in 2020, I predicted that before it was over, we’d surely hear calls for a cabinet level “Department of Pandemic Planning” or some other equivalent of the Department of Homeland Security that we set up in the aftermath of 9/11 to “coordinate” government agency activity at all levels of government. That prediction has moved a step closer to fulfillment. From the New York Times today: A bipartisan panel of health experts calls on Tuesday for an overhaul of the American public health system that would greatly expand the role of the federal government, giving Washington...

The bulletin cites 'individuals who advocate both for and against abortion' who publicly 'encouraged violence, including against government, religious, and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as those with opposing ideologies.' The high court scheduled an additional day of releasing opinions on Wednesday, with 33 decisions left in the current term until summer break. DHS also warned that 'domestic violent extremists' could use changes in the US-Mexico border enforcement system as a reason to carry out attacks against 'minorities and law enforcement officials' - just weeks after a judge blocked the Biden administration from lifting a pandemic-era expulsion policy...

When Siobhan Harrison noticed a bump on her upper chest in December 2020, she thought it was a pimple and tried to pop it. But the area became bruised, and then grew. "I kept an eye on it for a while and noticed it getting bigger, which I thought was because I'd aggravated it," Harrison, a 24-year-old barista in South Wales, told the UK wire service PA Life. "But it started to worry me, so I booked a doctor's appointment." Clinicians in the UK's public health system, NHS, referred her for further testing, but the wait list was nine months...

Men are reportedly being asked whether they are pregnant before being given radiotherapy. Cancer patients and those having X-rays and MRI scans are being asked the question, even if they are not women because the word 'female' has been replaced by 'individuals' for medical procedures. In Liverpool, the Walton Centre NHS Trust now asks 'all patients under the age of 60, regardless of how you may identify your gender' whether they could be having a baby. It is understood to be one of a handful of trusts to have expanded the questioning despite it not being a national policy at...