Researcher buries findings that show no mental health benefits from puberty blockers

A scientific researcher stunningly admits having shelved research that debunks mental health improvements for gender-dysphoric kids taking puberty blockers – apparently because she was afraid what the world might make of it.

The New York Times reports Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy sat on the taxpayer-funded, National Institutes of Health $10 million research because she was fearful the findings would be “weaponized” against the use of puberty blockers in minors.

In a 2020 update to the NIH, Olson-Kennedy had hypothesized the study, in which 95 minors with an average age of 11 were given puberty blockers starting in 2015, would demonstrate improvements in their mental health.

She theorized at the time that children in the study would demonstrate “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time.”

But when the study showed no such improvements at all, she declined to release the findings to the public.

“After following up with the youths for two years, the treatments did not improve the state of their mental health,” the New York Post writes, “which Olson-Kennedy chalked up to the kids being ‘in really good shape’ both when they started and concluded the two-year treatment.”

In reality, however, 1 in 4 of the participants, or 25%, had actually reported mental illness symptoms at the outset of the study – symptoms that were left unchanged after the use of puberty blockers, which delay gender-specific bodily changes such as breasts in girls.

Improved mental health is often used as an excuse for administering puberty blockers and other sex-change treatments to children.

The Post describes Olson-Kennedy as “a prominent doctor and trans rights advocate” who is, the Times reported, “one of the country’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to adolescents, and regularly provides expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures, which have taken root in more than 20 states.”

Condemnation of the findings’ withholding was swift and furious.

Clinical psychologist and a transgender youth expert Erica Anderson “told The Post she was ‘shocked’ and ‘disturbed’ about the decision to withhold publication of such vital research,” the newspaper reported.

“We’re craving information about these medical treatments for gender-questioning youth,” Anderson told the outlet. “Dr. Olson-Kennedy has the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the US on the subject and is sitting on data that would be helpful to know.

“It’s not her prerogative to decide, based on the results, that she will or won’t publish them.”

As the Post noted, even one of Olson-Kennedy’s fellow researchers, speaking to the Times, “pointed out the obvious contradiction in withholding scientific evidence on the grounds that it doesn’t match an expected conclusion.”

“I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there,” the fellow researcher told the Times.

Of Olson-Kennedy’s decision to withhold the findings out of the fear of a public backlash against sex-change treatments for kids, Anderson told the Post, “It’s contrary to the scientific method. You do research, and then you disclose what the results are.

“You don’t change them, you don’t distort them, and you don’t reveal or not reveal them based on the reactions of others. You report as scientists what you’ve learned.”

Independent of Olson-Kennedy’s failure to prove mental health improvements from puberty blockers, the Post notes that:

“In April, England’s National Health Service (NHS) disallowed puberty blockers for children following a four-year review conducted by independent researcher Dr. Hilary Cass, writing in her report, “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.

“Last year, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a leading Finnish expert on pediatric gender medicine, said in a newspaper interview that “four out of five” gender-questioning children will eventually grow out of it and accept their bodies even without medical intervention.”