“There is no evidence of a large rise in suicides in young patients attending a gender identity clinic in London, an independent review has found.”

"Prof Appleby’s review concludes “the data do not support the claim”.

And he added that the way the issue had been discussed on social media was “insensitive, distressing and dangerous”.

“A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said decisions on children’s healthcare must follow the evidence at all times.”

  • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    “We only saw a small rise, so until statistically significant numbers of children kill themselves, the brutality will continue.”

    Why is “suicide” the metric for healthcare to begin with? Imagine if dentists acted like this. “No one committed suicide from not receiving a root canal in the last 3 years, so we’ve determined them to be medically unnecessary.”

    • galmuth@feddit.uk
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      4 months ago

      It’s not used as a healthcare metric. This is just debunking reports that a healthcare policy was directly causing an “explosion” in suicides.

      • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Except they also say “The evidence on suicide risk in children and young people with gender dysphoria is generally poor.”

        That’s not debunking. That’s denial of the problem.

        • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk
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          4 months ago

          That’s not debunking. That’s denial of the problem.

          Plenty of reasons to reconsider this stupid extreme ban, And this is clearly weighing the limited evidence of suicide higher than the lack of evidence of harm.

          IE, it’s a bit hypocritical to ban something with no real evidence of harm. Simply because it has not been proven to be safe, And then argure the limited evidence of suicides, is a reason to continue.

          But words matter. So no it is not a denial. It is saying the difference between pre ban suicides and post ban suicides is statistically irrelevant. IE the changes are not usable as evidence, because they are not high enough to prove a trend. (yet as honestly the ban is far too recent for any of this data to be of value)

          Edit: QUICK look at numbers, last I heard 19 people had committed suicide since the ban in March while in some form of gender dysmorphia treatment. 5approx 6000 people a year commit suicide in the UK. Numbers being higher with any form of mental health treatment. (issue that needs addressing).

          • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            In the article, they only count 3 minors that have committed suicide since the ban, because they put additional qualifiers like that they had to already be on a specific treatment plan in order to count.

            Your preliminary numbers already destroy their argument, which is kind of my point.