Letters to the Editor: Concern regarding puberty blockers

One reader says the HSE must review the recently-published Cass report on gender healthcare in the UK

The report just published by Hilary Cass on gender healthcare for children in the UK, in which Dr Cass notes that moderate voices urging caution on medical interventions including prescription of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria were silenced by the toxic nature of the ideologically driven debate.

Dr Cass has found that the effects on pubescent and pre-pubescent children of medical interventions such as puberty blockers is not evidence based and long-term effects unknown.

The WPATH so-called standards of care which were incorporated into the UK NHS approach from 2014 are exposed by the Cass report as not based on the evidential standards ordinarily required by the UK NHS, resulting in a scandalous lack of care to vulnerable children. 

Concerns have been raised about this since the publication of Dr Cass’s interim findings in 2020. 

Now that Dr Cass has published her final report, the NHS in England has halted the used of medical interventions including puberty blockers in children, because the Cass report makes clear these have been used recklessly and without a sound evidence base.

The HSE has said it will review the Cass report. It should do so urgently and halt any such interventions in children until this has been completed.

The HSE also states that the development of an updated model of care for gender healthcare services will be informed by the best evidence on clinical care for gender dysphoria.

The HSE needs to state definitively that it is not referencing WPATH standards of care, as it is apparent from the Cass report that these so-called standards are not based on sound evidence and patient follow-up. We must ensure that the kind of reckless medical intervention on vulnerable children exposed by the Cass report as occurring in UK NHS clinics does not form any part of HSE practice.

Nuala Ahern, Greystones, Co Wicklow

All hostages must be treated equally

Much media reportage about ceasefire talks in the Israel-Gaza war focuses on the Israeli hostages held by Hamas with no consideration given to those Palestinian hostages held by Israel — most held without any judicial review, many long before October 7, 2023.

The numbers of Palestinians held since then have only escalated where now more than 7,000 have been arrested in the West Bank alone and are being held in Israeli detention centres.

Interned Palestinians exceed 9,400 and include 200 children some as young as seven years old.

There are at least 3,600 so-called administrative detainees.

This is a system whereby no charges are brought against those detained.

Palestinians can thus be repeatedly taken and held indefinitely, essentially as political prisoners, aka hostages.

In a report dated March 9 from the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, detainees taken from the Gaza Strip who are being held by the Israeli army are being subjected to premeditated murder and arbitrary execution. Ill-treatment, degrading disregard of human dignity, deprivation of the most basic rights, and horrible forms of torture including those that result in murder are documented.

A report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes the deaths of 27 Gaza Strip detainees during questioning in Israeli military detention centres following severe torture and mistreatment.

Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestine Initiative reminds us that nine prisoners died in Guantanamo in 20 years while 27 Palestinian detainees have died within six months in an Israeli concentration camp in the Negev desert.

Calls for the release of all hostages must include the thousands of Palestinians illegally detained in Israeli detention centres.

Jim Roche, Irish Anti-War Movement, Dublin 1

Charity suggestion

On my way into my local shop for a local paper, I noticed the Louth Society for the Prevention Of Cruelty to Animals having its usual collection.

I did ask the lady with the boxes if her Dublin colleagues had set up a similar stall outside Dáil Éireann; alas, she didn’t know.

I then made the very helpful suggestion that her organisation and every other charity concerned with animal or human welfare should combine their resources and set up permanent stands 24/7, 365 on Kildare Street, similar to what car boot sales people do.

I’m sure that that would be more profitable than having random pop-up stands all over the country once a year — they might even be paid handsomely to stay away.

Liam Power, Dundalk, Co Louth

Extra gardaí?

The RSA and Minister for Justice have rightly criticised the policing resources allocated to the Garda Traffic Unit and want additional gardaí employed on road traffic duties. With all Garda stations currently stretched to their limits, how many gardaí do the minister and RSA propose to pull from Dublin’s O’Connell Street and other streets of our crime-ridden cities and suburbs to carry out road traffic duties?

John Murphy, Ballyfermot, Dublin

Cinema legends

At the annual CinemaCon in Las Vegas recently, the central question being posed was that movie theatres need more movies to truly thrive again.

At the same time, the sumptuous, art-deco Regal Cinema in Youghal had a full house on Monday evening last with 140 paying customers turning up to see a local filmmaker ode to his heroes, the Horgan brothers.

The three boys pioneered the birth of Irish film and cinema production in the picturesque, what was then, just a small fishing town.

But as the film’s director, Michael Twomey said to a captive audience before the start of the hour-long, black-and-white documentary, nobody outside of Youghal knows about the Horgan brothers.

With credit to the Irish Examiner for the feature article on the history of Jim, Phil, and Tom Horgan ('Horgan brothers of Youghal: Pioneers of early Irish cinema' — Irish Examiner, April 11), Michael Twomey has put the town of the “yew wood” back on the map just in time for the 70th anniversary celebrations of the making of its most famous export, Moby-Dick.

The Horgan Brothers: Princes of the Picture Theatre will next have a special screening at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork city centre on May 30 at 6.30pm.

Tickets can be purchased from the Triskel website.

Tom McElligott, Listowel, Co Kerry