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In Boston, go figure....

Critics Slam Boston Doctor Who Offers Sex Change Treatment to Kid

Monday, May 19, 2008

Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric specialist at Children's Hospital Boston, has been criticized for offering sex change treatments for children.
Boston’s Children’s Hospital bills itself as the hospital for children — and now it’s also the hospital for children who want a sex change, a procedure some critics are calling “barbaric.”

Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric specialist at the hospital, has launched a clinic for transgendered kids — boys who feel like girls, girls who want to be boys — and he’s opening his doors to patients as young as 7.

Spack offers his younger patients counseling and drugs that delay the onset of puberty. The drugs stop the natural flood of hormones that would make it difficult to have a sex alteration later in life, allowing patients more time to decide whether they want to make the change.

Spack also offers some teenagers hormone therapy, a drastic step that changes the way they grow and develop. While the effects of drug treatments can be stopped, long-term hormone therapy can be irreversible, causing permanent infertility in both sexes.

For some, that trade-off is worth it. Transgendered children are deeply troubled and have a “high level of suicide attempts,” Spack told the Boston Globe. “I’ve never seen any patient make [a suicide attempt] after they’ve started hormonal treatment,” he said.

Spack would not grant an interview to FOXNews.com.

But not all doctors are convinced, and some say the treatments do much more harm than good.

“Treating these children with hormones does considerable harm and it compounds their confusion,” said Dr. Paul McHugh, University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University. “Trying to delay puberty or change someone’s gender is a rejection of the lawfulness of nature.”

McHugh said gender reassignment for children harkens back to the dark ages, when choir boys were castrated to retain their high-pitched voices. "It’s barbaric,” he said.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal charity affiliated with the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, says that transgender disorder is a mental disorder, not a medical one, and that it should be treated with behavior modification, not hormones or surgery.

“Just as you don’t give liposuction to an anorexic, you don’t do sexual reassignment surgery on men who think that they are women and vice versa,” Staver said.

“At some point in childhood," McHugh said, "many children role play as the opposite sex, but it is a social, not a medical issue.”

But other doctors say there is a transgender “gene.”

Dr. Irene Sills, an physician and Senior Professor of Pediatrics at the State University of New York, has treated 15 transgender children in the last 6 years, and considers the condition innate as a result of her study.

“We have had a case of identical twins that seems to disprove [other] theories,” she told FOXNews.com. “The twin girls were brought up in exactly the same environment, but by the age of 3, one of them kept insisting that she was a boy and kept mimicking masculine dress and behavior.”

Sills reported that her patients and their families have all been pleased with her therapy and support. She said she never asks families to sign a waiver before treating their children. “I trust our procedures and I trust my patients,” she said in an interview.

But some experts expect legal challenges to mount in the face of further treatment. According to Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense, parents and doctors may not be safe from litigation if children are made sterile due to hormonal treatments — even if they do sign waivers.

“We will eventually start to see such parents and doctors sued and possibly arrested for what is essentially child abuse,” Nimocks told FOXNews.com.

Still, some think transgender medical therapies for children, which have been used for many years in Europe, Asia and Australia, may soon gain more acceptance in the U.S.

“Most medical professionals know very little about transgender treatments for children, so I do grand rounds at hospitals to educate them,” said Stephanie Brill, co-author of “The Transgender Child,” which will be published in June. “The doctors are very receptive, so I believe that we will see transgender medicine become much more prevalent over the next decade.”

Yet even as such procedures are introduced to a wider public and offered to younger patients, it remains to be seen whether proponents of the procedure will find much support.

“Just because modern medicine can accomplish certain things does not mean that these procedures should be done,” said Nimocks. “That’s the mindset of a Dr. Kevorkian, and he wound up in jail.”

Hillary Viders and Joseph Abrams contributed to this story.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356592,00.html


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If a childs hormones havent kicked in how can they tell if the kid is transgendered??

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If a childs hormones havent kicked in how can they tell if the kid is transgendered??

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Most transgendered adults will tell you they knew from a very early age. It's not about sexual preference, which is a common misconception about transgendered. It's about feeling that you are a girl or a boy in the wrong body.

Nearly all of us will admit that boys and girls are different long before they start puberty. Transgender isn't about sexual preference.

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Is 7 really an appropriate age to make a decision that will be affecting you for the rest of your life. Maybe I just don't give seven-year-old's enough credit.

But I just don't think a 7 year old's mind is able to comprehend the seriousness of such a surgery.


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and he’s opening his doors to patients as young as 7.







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Quote:

Spack offers his younger patients counseling and drugs that delay the onset of puberty. The drugs stop the natural flood of hormones that would make it difficult to have a sex alteration later in life, allowing patients more time to decide whether they want to make the change.

Spack also offers some teenagers hormone therapy, a drastic step that changes the way they grow and develop. While the effects of drug treatments can be stopped, long-term hormone therapy can be irreversible, causing permanent infertility in both sexes.




Why does this man still have a license?

Quote:

For some, that trade-off is worth it. Transgendered children are deeply troubled and have a “high level of suicide attempts,” Spack told the Boston Globe. “I’ve never seen any patient make [a suicide attempt] after they’ve started hormonal treatment,” he said.




Is it a certainty these children were suicidal before the treatment?

Quote:

But not all doctors are convinced, and some say the treatments do much more harm than good.

“Treating these children with hormones does considerable harm...




Again, why does this man still have a license?


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I dont see how anyone can defend this. To me it's the same as getting breast implants for a young woman who's celebrating her sweet 16. It someone wants to do it when theyre 18, and almost fully developed from a biological standpoint, then be my guest. But a child barely out of diapers that sometimes still has accidents in their bed is not mentally equipped to make this (literally) life-changing decision! I can't believe they're letting him do hormonal treatments on them at that age. Talk about throwing their neuroendocrine system out of whack at a young age. Geez, its not just messing with their bodies, it messes with behavior too. I hope this thread is still up when my publication comes out ...


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But I just don't think a 7 year old's mind is able to comprehend the seriousness of such a surgery.




I actually agree with you about something.


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If a 7 year old is barely out of diapers then they have problems. But I agree that this "doctor" should lose his license.

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I dont see how anyone can defend this. To me it's the same as getting breast implants for a young woman who's celebrating her sweet 16. It someone wants to do it when theyre 18, and almost fully developed from a biological standpoint, then be my guest. But a child barely out of diapers that sometimes still has accidents in their bed is not mentally equipped to make this (literally) life-changing decision! I can't believe they're letting him do hormonal treatments on them at that age. Talk about throwing their neuroendocrine system out of whack at a young age. Geez, its not just messing with their bodies, it messes with behavior too. I hope this thread is still up when my publication comes out ...




It sickens me how often "Do no harm" is sidelined in the name of profits. It's disgusting. Plastic surgery is a boon out here in Cali and there is little regret that it has become the bane it has, growing nationally.


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Quote:

I dont see how anyone can defend this. To me it's the same as getting breast implants for a young woman who's celebrating her sweet 16. It someone wants to do it when theyre 18, and almost fully developed from a biological standpoint, then be my guest. But a child barely out of diapers that sometimes still has accidents in their bed is not mentally equipped to make this (literally) life-changing decision! I can't believe they're letting him do hormonal treatments on them at that age. Talk about throwing their neuroendocrine system out of whack at a young age. Geez, its not just messing with their bodies, it messes with behavior too. I hope this thread is still up when my publication comes out ...




It sickens me how often "Do no harm" is sidelined in the name of profits. It's disgusting. Plastic surgery is a boon out here in Cali and there is little regret that it has become the bane it has, growing nationally.




While what you say is true, i don't know that this doctor is guilty of that. I mean, he's taking a lot of heat and i doubt his decision to work with young patients is making him any more money than if he stuck to adults. He's seems to be doing it because he really belives in it.

I'm not taking this doctor's side, but i don't think his license should be taken away. The truth is, none of us know about the individual cases to make a judgment. I do understand, however, what he is trying to do, and in theory i don't think it is objectionable unless you simply believe that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to switch genders. The question is how it is done in practice - how determinations are made, what conditions must be met, how extensive the treartment can be at a certain age.

It's a complicated issue, but if, and that's a big if, If this doctor is correct about identifying transgender people early on in childhood, it will save them many years of anguish and give them a chance to look and feel good about themselves. I have no doubt that many if not all transgender people would give anything to go back to childhood and start making the changes then to save them from the humilition, depression, and perhaps death by suicide, caused by living so long and going through puberty as the wrong sex.

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Is 7 really an appropriate age to make a decision that will be affecting you for the rest of your life. Maybe I just don't give seven-year-old's enough credit.

But I just don't think a 7 year old's mind is able to comprehend the seriousness of such a surgery.




Did i miss something? i thought he was talking about hormone therapy that slows puberty, essentially giving them more time to consider who they are. He's not talking about operating on a seven year old.

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You may have a point and since we don't have all the facts it's hard to argue. The article did say he launched a clinic. I wonder if it's a free clinic. I'm all for helping the sexually mis-gendered, (if that's the term,) I do however, have a problem with experimenting on children with drugs and hormones and statements like these do nothing to convince me it's a good idea:

Quote:

The drugs stop the natural flood of hormones that would make it difficult to have a sex alteration later in life, allowing patients more time to decide whether they want to make the change.

Spack also offers some teenagers hormone therapy, a drastic step that changes the way they grow and develop. While the effects of drug treatments can be stopped, long-term hormone therapy can be irreversible, causing permanent infertility in both sexes.

But not all doctors are convinced, and some say the treatments do much more harm than good. “Treating these children with hormones does considerable harm... "




I seriously doubt, (though again I don't know,) that the treatments and drugs are free. And I stand by what I said regarding the notion of doing no harm often being relegated as immaterial in the name of profit. If his motives are pure and truly altruistic then perhaps drugs and hormones aren't the only or even best answer and he could better serve by finding that out for certain first.


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Why does it have to be free?


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Didn't say it did, just said it probably isn't when jobencasa mentioned the possible purely altruistic nature of the man's work. I was pointing out that profit often drives medicine at the expense of safety and think it's doubtful he is doing it out of the good of his heart solely for the benefit of those afflicted. Personally, I think it's likely (and it's just an opinion) that the doctor sees it as finding niche medicine and is capitalizing on the pain this causes. Of course I could be entirely wrong. Even if I'm not, I don't like the experimental nature of unproven, potentially harmful drug/hormone therapy on children . Don't get me started on profit mongering at the expense of health by Big Pharmaceutical companies and by extension the doctors who push these drugs.


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Why does it have to be free?




ain't no way in hell that it's free... but I'd be really interested in seeing how they are billing the insurance companies on it... and if they are getting approved... I would have to assume that they are.

I dunno about this. I personally don't think children are mature enough to make those life long decisions at that age... and I'm not a big fan of messing with hormones at such young ages either.

I guess I'd like to read more of the research on this area.


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