“Don’t do it,” yelled Dr. Anthony Fauci in August. “There is no evidence whatsoever that that works!”
Fauci, of course, was referring to the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19. For the moment, set aside that Fauci should have been fired years ago and has a long record of misleading and politicizing “science.” He and pretty much everyone else in America’s public health infrastructure pointed out that ivermectin had not been approved for treating Covid — and therefore using it “off-label” was dangerous.
But these same bureaucrats take a completely different view about giving puberty-blocking drugs to children. Puberty blockers are federally approved for treating different cancers and the very early onset of puberty. They are not approved for delaying puberty in children experiencing gender dysphoria. Yet the Biden administration is actively promoting that off-label use as part of a “gender-affirming care” regimen.
Even if you believe elementary school children experiencing gender dysphoria should be able to delay puberty, shouldn’t you at least want to make sure the drugs are safe?
That is the question I asked Dr. Lawrence Tabak, the acting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), last week. Where is the safety data? Where is the effectiveness data? Where is the long-term risk data? All questions the public health establishment asked about ivermectin.
Tabak’s answer? “NIH funds a small number of observational studies,” and over time, “we will be able to better answer the types of questions that you’re posing.”
In other words, there are no answers. We have absolutely no meaningful data regarding the long-term implications of giving these radical, life-altering drugs to elementary school children. We cannot possibly weigh the costs and benefits. The Food and Drug Administration is nowhere close to approving such uses. Yet the Biden administration, the corporate media, and so-called “experts” are actively promoting them. It’s irresponsible and dangerous.
For example, what happens to an 11-year-old girl who starts taking puberty blockers and then decides at age 16 that she wants to live as a woman? The Biden administration claims the effects of puberty blockers are “reversible.” Based on Tabak’s sworn testimony, that claim is misleading — at best. A major Swedish health institution acknowledged puberty blockers could result in “extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis.”
We know that the vast majority of individuals with gender dysphoria eventually lose their desire to identify with another sex. That is clinically documented, but Democrats, including the woke public health officials who make up our scientific establishment, now claim that study is “flawed.” Of course, those same activists cannot point to a study to defend poisoning our children.
As with Covid, it appears that for woke ideologues, “following the science” means getting the preferred outcome regardless of the evidence.
We need to have a higher standard when administering life-altering drugs to children. As usual, Florida is leading the way in establishing that standard. Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo cited “the lack of conclusive evidence” and “the potential for long-term, irreversible effects” in his memo blocking hormonal and surgical interventions for children with gender dysphoria.
The left railed against that memo, but what Florida is doing is common sense. What is crazy is that the same people who took chocolate milk out of school lunches are promoting puberty blockers, hormone injections, and mutilative surgeries for children who are more than a decade away from having fully developed brains.
It is time we start holding woke public health officials responsible for their dangerous advocacy. It is the only way we’ll be able to protect our children from this extreme, irresponsible zealotry.