Scary guy
Commenter guest reminded us that Jack Turban has conflicts of interest. Let’s refresh our memories on those conflicts.
Uncommon ground in August 2020:
Jack Turban, insistent critic of Abigail Shrier’s book on transitioning of young girls, constantly claims puberty blockers are safe. He is paid by a firm that manufactures them.
And this isn’t, like, an acne cream or an over the counter cold remedy. It’s halting an adolescent’s puberty, with all the attendant consequences we’ve been learning about over the past several years. It’s a very drastic intervention, even if you believe everyone who claims to be trans really is trans and really does need medical intervention. If you believe that at least some people who claim that are ensnared by a fad as opposed to really trans, then it’s even worse. Jack Turban accepts money from people who profit from the interventions.
Jack Turban, MD, fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford University School of medicine, bills himself as an Allopathic & Osteopathic Physician. But he’s famous for his advocacy for certain positions regarding transgender medicine – for advocating for the ‘Gender Affirming Care for Trans and ‘gender-diverse’ youth’ as part of his work on ‘Pediatric Gender Identity’ and vigorously advocating for, and downplaying the risks of, medical transition, while selling books on the same.
Again, “gender-affirming” care is very drastic. It seems like the kind of thing medical professionals ought to treat with caution and low speed and more caution.
He is most popular for labeling any medical professional or medical research that finds success in psychosocial treatments for kids with gender identity disorder, without putting them on puberty blockers and setting them on a path to cross sex hormone treatment and surgery, as ‘conversion therapy,’ that awful throwback to electroshock torture of gay people.
Case in point:
When in doubt…trans all the children. Especially if there’s money in it.
According to Open Payments Search Tool used to track payments made by drug and medical device companies to physicians and teaching hospitals, Jack Turban has received at least $15,000 (US) from Arbor Pharmaceuticals, manufacturers of Triptodur™, (triptorelin) which, through extended release injectable suspension, has been shown to arrest or reverse the clinical signs of puberty, in cases of precocious puberty – the exact purpose Arbor advocates Triptodur for.
Now if this were a matter of a medication that has some risks but also has unmistakable benefits for unmistakable physical problems, it would be a more complicated story, but the purported benefits of “gender-affirming care” are so heavily dependent on believing in the ideology of fungible gender that it becomes very difficult (or just sinister) to say “Yes it’s risky but it’s worth the risk.” Doing so while accepting money from the makers of the medication is not a good look.
The Conspiracy Theorist in me wonders whether this institutionalize/commercialized push to medical transitioning isn’t just population control in the form of manipulating the delusional and easily-swayed into voluntary sterilization. Not sure whether/how that plot includes narcissistic men who want to retain all their male parts but impose themselves on women, but as far as population control goes it might not be the worst one… is coercion into thinking it’s your actual desire better than force?
The Scientist in me is admittedly a bit doubtful that it will be enough to reduce the human population to a sustainable level anyway…
Strange, isn’t it, that just a few years ago there was a massive issue raised by the Skeptic/Autism Advocate communities about Autistic youngsters (primarily male) being fed Lupron as a supposed “cure” for their Autism – that was totally caused by mercury poisoning (somehow that none of these practitioners ever really managed to satisfactorily explain).
There was a huge fuss about how chemical castration doesn’t cure a neurological developmental disorder, and that feeding these kids the same stuff that everyone decided was too harsh to give to literal *sex offenders* was correctly recognised as medical abuse (often driven by the kind of parent that won’t accept a “defective” child), and totally unacceptable.
Whatever happened to all that outrage about poisoning children with drugs that affected *every system in their bodies*, that was well-documented to have horrific side-effects and long-term consequences?
Whatever happened to those people who were saying that the Geiers and their contemporary quacks deserved to lose their licences to practice, and that many of the “Autism Warrior Parents” were participating in what looked an awful lot like Munchausens by Proxy?
Whatever happened to the idea that this was a monstrous human rights abuse perpetrated against vulnerable youngsters by people who certainly didn’t have the child’s best interests in mind?
Whatever happened to the evidence from the young women that had been given these meds for legitimate reasons (precocious puberty, childhood cancers) who had documented those horrific side-effects and long-term consequences of being on these meds for a year or so (osteoporosis, factured hips in their 20’s, teeth crumbling, constant pain & fatigue, some are full-time wheelchair users because their bones just fall apart, etc.)? Or does none of that evidence matter because nobody listens to women & girls?
How did everyone suddenly switch to “it’s perfectly fine to sterilise and poison Autistic youngsters – and let’s add any potentially Lesbian and Gay kids, or anyone else who doesn’t fit into sex role stereotypes that would have been considered extreme during the 1950’s while we’re at it, and call anyone who objects ‘bigots’ who want to murder pwecious baybeez!”?
Concern for the well-being of children over the long-term isn’t “hatred”.
Wanting children to be able to live the best lives they can with the support they deserve isn’t “bigotry”.
Nobody with any sense accused those previously documenting the effects of Lupron on Autistic youngsters of “enacting genocide”.
The terrifying thing is that those people don’t see that this is the same lethal quackery it always was. The people who cheered as the Geiers were booted out of medicine are declaring the *same “treatments”* are “essential healthcare” and anyone with any concerns about what’s happening is “evil” and deserves to be tortured and murdered. How can they not see it? They’re not all making money from it.
People who think they’re (identifying as?) progressive are cheering this on. How many youngsters have to suffer before reality comes crashing back in?
And how many of the people cheering this on will ever take any responsibility for what they’re promoting?
Even if they did (which they won’t – see all human history), what could they even do to help those whose bodies have been poisoned and whose lives have been blighted by this insanity?
This is going to be the lobotomy craze turned up to eleven. How can humanity fail to learn from the same mistakes, over and over again?
I know we’ve all made this point a thousand times but I never claimed not to be boring: where are the skeptics?
They (we) were right there front and centre when homoeopathy was a hot topic. You know what? In retrospect I think we probably exaggerated the harms, I don’t mind admitting it. Not the harms of believing nonsense, I don’t think those can be overstated, but the harms of fannying about with water for pretend ailments or ones that will eventually sort themselves out anyway*… there’s a case to be made that we might have had our thumbs on the scale when we raved about it as a scourge. Understand that I regret nothing and I’m no less opposed to fake medicine than previously, but I wonder in retrospect whether we had a bit of a perspective problem and I think my focus might be different if I did it all again.
So if skeptics were – I hesitantly suggest – a touch over-zealous about quack medicine that was stupid and wrong and harmful – but perhaps not as harmful as we made out – why are so many of them cheerleaders for largely untested, off-label medicine which we know for scientific fact is extremely harmful and is being prescribed without adequate research, guidance or supervision?
The roster of former movement skeptics who are openly critical of puberty blockers is depressingly small. Ophelia, of course. Andy Lewis. Our own Arty. Moley (who I had the pleasure of meeting recently!) There are not many others. Where is Ben Goldacre? He wrote a whole book on ‘medicine’ that does more harm than good and another whole book on the dubious practices of pharmaceutical companies in selling medicines that have not been shown by any reasonable standard to work or be safe. Where is he? We used to be fairly regular correspondents because we were both stalked by the same deranged individual but now he wont talk to me at all. If anyone should be taking a stand against puberty blockers, it’s Ben.
He should be all over this.
Where.
Is.
He?
I made the point about our perhaps being over-zealous about the harms of certain quack medicines to throw the lack of outrage among movement skeptics about puberty blockers into sharp relief. Never mind the messy, politically-charged and deliberately-obfuscated business of whether humans can change sex or whether men should be allowed in women’s spaces**; this is an issue about whether a particular drug is safe and effective. It’s right up the skeptical movement’s alley. Where is everyone?
* I know there are cases of homoeopathic nonsense being responsible for suffering and death. I’m being deliberately flippant to eventually get around to making a point.
** Can’t, shouldn’t.
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