It's Friday, October the 25th, 2024. Welcome to the Daily Article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins

with the Denison Forum, narrating today's daily article written by Dr. Ryan Denison.

When Johanna Olson Kennedy and her team began their research into the effects of puberty blockers on children

in 2015.

The research was supposed to last for two years.

Yet as Aesian Goreshi of the New York Times reports, neither she nor her team have published

their findings nearly a decade later.

When asked why, Olson Kennedy stated,

I do not want our work to be weaponized. Her concerns stem from the fact that the study found

the 95 children recruited to participate did not show signs of improved well-being as a result of

the puberty blockers. In response, Olson Kennedy argued that the lack of impact was due to the children being well-adjusted before beginning the trial.

In 2020, however, she stated that roughly a quarter of the kids were depressed with significant anxiety and suicidal tendencies.

The negative response toward the decision to withhold the results of the largest grant

that's ever been awarded in the U.S. on the subject isn't sitting well with the scientific

community, including those who are generally supportive of transgender rights.

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and transgender youth expert,

noted that Olson Kennedy's refusal to publish her findings is 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 reaction of others."

And that is especially the case when negative reactions to the research appear to be justified.

After all, Olson Kennedy's research is not the first to point to puberty blockers being a poor way to address gender dysphoria in kids.

Similar research was conducted in England a little more than a decade ago, and both were

...