STREETING 'UNCOMFORTABLE' WITH PUBERTY BLOCKER TRIAL
Wes Streeting has said he is “not comfortable” about a clinical trial of puberty blockers going ahead.
The Health Secretary said that he had concerns about how to keep children safe, but that he wanted to follow the “clinical advice” which was for the trial to go ahead.
Puberty blockers will be given to more than 200 children, potentially as young as eight, who think they may be transgender, as part of the trial.
Mr Streeting said that he was “deeply uncomfortable” with the idea of medication “that delays or indeed stops a natural part of our human development”.
He permanently banned the drugs after the Commission on Human Medicines said they posed “unacceptable safety risks”.
Review states evidence for blockers ‘weak’
The NHS trial was recommended in the Cass review, which said there was “remarkably weak” evidence to support the use of puberty blockers in gender-questioning children and more research was needed.
Mr Streeting told LBC: “Hilary Cass also recommended we do a pathways study that involves a whole range of treatments in care, including therapeutics and mental health support, but it also included a trial on this puberty blockers”.
“I’m not comfortable, candidly, about it,” he added.
Asked why he was uncomfortable, he told the broadcaster: “The two overriding concerns that I have, the only two really are: firstly, how do we keep these children safe? And how do we make sure they receive effective and evidence-based care?”
Mr Streeting said that the windows to his constituency office had been broken three times by trans activists, and has been called “all the names under the sun” since the trial was announced.
But he added: “To be honest, the extreme stuff I don’t care about anyway, the political noise I put to one side. I’m following clinical advice.”
Pressed again on what made him feel uncomfortable about the trial, if it was the advice from medical professionals, he said: “There’s something about the opposition to this.
“Medication that delays or indeed stops a natural part of our human development, which is puberty, I am deeply uncomfortable with.
“The clinical advice is to go ahead with the trial, and those who advocate this medication, and lots of other countries are using medication in these cases, suggest that for trans people, this is a better course of treatment than leaving them without and with all of the distress and harm that that could be.”
‘I’m trying hard not to interfere’
He added: “It’s gone through rounds and rounds of ethical approvals to approve this kind of study. So that’s the basis on which we are proceeding.
“We’re following that evidence. As I say, it doesn’t sit comfortably with me. I’m trying really hard as a politician not to interfere or block clinical advice by people who are, frankly, far more qualified than me.
“There will be debate on this, and one thing we’ve learned in this whole area is not to shout down people who’ve got concerns.”
It is understood that Mr Streeting is open to debate on the trial, despite having no plans to call it off at this stage.
A source close to the Health Secretary said he was aware of the arguments being put forward and was always open to being challenged on his decisions.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow women and equalities minister, said Mr Streeting was “right” to express discomfort over the trial.
“Wes Streeting is right to be ‘uncomfortable’ about putting children as young as eight, who might have autism and neurological differences, on a pathway to infertility and loss of sexual function.
“No child can consent to that. It is a grotesque experiment on children and it must be halted”
Mr Streeting made the comments after MPs from different parties demanded that the puberty blockers trial did not go ahead.
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Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, is among dozens of MPs to have condemned it as “unethical”.
No 10 refused to say if Sir Keir Starmer was comfortable with the trial when pressed on Mr Streeting’s comments.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “I think the Health Secretary has said and has been clear that children with gender incongruence deserve safe, compassionate and effective care, and that healthcare must always be led by evidence.
“And that’s why we’re following the recommendations of the Cass review, which, as well as bringing in a ban on puberty blockers, specifically called for this clinical research to address the current lack of evidence.”
Asked specifically if Sir Keir was comfortable with the trial, the spokesman said: “Well, look, the Health Secretary set out the position on this, I would just point you back to that. That is the Government position. He said ... that it was Hilary Cass who sounded the alarm about the prescription of puberty blockers for this patient group without adequate evidence. She also recommended this trial.
“And he added, it will not be the case that a child, young person, can say, ‘I want to be on this trial’, and then they’re on it; they have to go through rigorous assessment in terms of their physical health and their mental health, and their parents will need to be involved and consenting.”
‘Buck stops’ with Health Secretary
Campaigners have launched a legal action against the Medicines & Health products Regulatory Agency, which licensed the trial, and the Health Research Authority, which gave it ethical approval.
Helen Joyce, from the women’s rights charity Sex Matters, said the Health Secretary had been “rattled” by resistance to the trial.
She told The Telegraph: “Streeting needs to listen to his instincts, stop the trial until data on children who have already been exposed to puberty blockers has been fully analysed.
“It’s outrageous that researchers received ethical approval to subject yet more children to this dangerous treatment when we still don’t know how those already exposed are doing in adult life.
“Streeting has the power and the responsibility to call a halt to the trial, and tell researchers that no more children will be put at risk until they can demonstrate good outcomes for those who have already received these powerful, experimental drugs.”
A Labour MP critical of the trial told The Telegraph the remarks from Mr Streeting were “very encouraging” and that it showed opponents “have to keep pushing”.
Sharron Davies, the former Olympic swimmer who has been nominated as a Conservative peer, also told Mr Streeting not to “pass the buck”.
She wrote on X: “Your name will forever stay with this unnecessary experiment. Insist gender clinics provide follow up information on the 2000+ children already experimented on. Puberty is not an illness.Y”
2025-12-12T10:50:35Z
