Science shouldn't become political. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with a point.

Recently, the University of Washington published research into whether hormones and puberty blockers

improve the mental health of kids with gender dysphoria. According to the PR team for the university,

pretty much every media outlet that covered the study and the study's authors themselves, the answer was,

yes, except it wasn't.

The numbers actually revealed no difference between kids' mental health before taking hormones

and after a year of treatment.

At both points, kids were suffering from dramatic mental health problems.

If anything, the study suggested that kids who did not start taking the medications got slightly

worse.

The university refused to

officially respond when an independent journalist challenged their conclusion,

though the study's authors admitted their findings had been misrepresented.

Internal emails showed the university's communications team wasn't concerned that the

story was not accurate. They liked that it was popular. Among the casualties of

the politicizing of scientific research is public trust in our institutions.

The most vulnerable casualties, however, are the kids.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with The Point.