Thread on the #keirabell judgement and sorry state of evidence-lead health policy in New Zealand.

We have further confirmation that there is no good evidence of benefit from puberty blockers, and significant risks.

1/11

The judges heard evidence for and against, and testimony from former patients. They ruled that puberty blocking is "experimental", with "very limited evidence as to its efficacy"

An unsurprising finding if you're familiar with the literature.

2/11
This is a continuation of the findings from the national health body reviews from Sweden and Finland. Both find that evidence is insufficient.

3/11

https://t.co/SdNHXYPiCT
A review by the Center for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University highlighted the "profound scientific ignorance" on the the use of puberty blockers

4/11

https://t.co/jTnu4jfuUt
A 2018 review by an Australian expert group finds that all studies on the psych effects of puberty blockers have a medium or high risk of bias.

5/11

https://t.co/7L5dLrr5Zo
Ok, what about New Zealand?
Dr Jeannie Oliphant is the lead author of NZ guidelines. She described puberty blockers as "the gold standard for young people." and claims that "we are using puberty blockers very freely up until about till about 20".

6/11

https://t.co/DAeIpJqqCB
The NZ guidelines cite a *single* highly biased study (de Vries et al., 2014) and then claim that puberty blocking is supported by "good evidence"

7/11

https://t.co/pch96L8gVC
The lead author of the original study (de Vries) now believes puberty suppression is not always appropriate.

She believes psychosocial support may be more appropriate for children who have recent dysphoria

8/11

https://t.co/cgHf23gCCS
New Zealand children have the right to not be subject to medical experimentation. Health authorities must uphold the right to informed consent and provide psychosocial support.

9/11
If you know doctors and parents who are considering blocking a child's normal puberty, please forward them the judgement

10/11

https://t.co/nCsHJRhZSh
Thread summarised here ->

11/Fin

https://t.co/N3SdEm0sCK

More from Law

Pretty much every professional field EXCEPT police have clear, rigorous, transparent consequences for unethical behavior, negligence and malpractice.


The idea that we can "disbar" lawyers but not police is absolute foolishness.

All the factors that make disbarment a necessary tool for lawyers apply to cops... except that cops don't need to be qualified in the first place.

It is a rank absurdity of the criminal justice system that one needs to be educated and certified with a degree in order to argue on behalf of someone's life in court, but to have no qualifications necessary to detain, assault, or prematurely end that same life.

There are countless circumstances in which a lawyer's unethical behavior will result in them not only losing their job but never being able to practice it again.

But corrupt and murderous cops can be rehired indefinitely.

A lawyer's entire career can be ended forever if they were found to have knowingly put someone on a stand to lie.

Police officers however are allowed to lie in court on the stand under oath.

So much that lawyers aren't penalized for putting cops on the stand to lie.
I’ve been reading lots recently about the interaction between First Amendment law and free speech principles with respect to online services in light of the events of the last few weeks.

And I have thoughts (MY OWN). So, I’m sorry ... a thread 1/25

One of the main reasons I think users are best served by a recognition that social media services have 1st Amendment rights to curate the content on their sites is because many users want filtered content, either by topic, or by behavior, or other. 2/

So online services should have the right to do this filtering, and to give their users the tools to do so too. For more detail see our Prager U amicus brief
https://t.co/73PswB9Q7Q 3/

So, I disagree with my friends (and others) who say that every online service should apply First Amendment rules, even though they cannot be required to do so. There are both practical and policy reasons why I don’t like this. 4/

Most obviously, the 1st Amendment reflects only one national legal system when this is inherently an international issue. So it’s politically messy, even if you think a 1st Amendment-based policy will be most speech-protective (though probably only non-sexual speakers). 5/
We are live tweeting from the preliminary hearing of the Employment Tribunal case in which #AllisonBailey is suing Stonewall and Garden Court chambers.


The judge has ruled that for this hearing only, the names should remain redacted.

It is a Rule 50 Order. These particular individuals are members of Stonewall’s Trans Advisory Group and their names may well be known elsewhere. What is relevant is the messages from the group to Garden Court.

The judge states she would not make the same decision at the full hearing. This is only for the preliminary hearing.

Having dealt with the anonymity issue we now move to the main submissions in the case.

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I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991."
https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.