The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has made a U-turn on its guidelines regarding hormone therapy for children who say they are transgender, claiming the risks to the children outweigh possible benefits.
The National Board of Health and Welfare is expected to release new guidelines after delaying a report in December following a series of investigations by the television programme “Uppdrag Granskning” last November, which examined the effects of hormone treatment on children.
The new guidelines are set to replace a prior 2015 guideline that recommended the use of puberty blockers for children as being “safe and secure,” broadcaster SVT reports.
According to the health board, the risks of hormone treatments outweigh the benefits stating, “Pending… a research study, our assessment is that the treatments can be given in exceptional cases.”
Thomas Lindén, Head of The National Board of Health and Welfare, also stated, “The studies available do not provide sufficient information about the treatment. We cannot rule out negative effects of it and we do not know if it is useful, it is always associated with problems and risk.”
The new guidelines come just months after a report claimed that doctors at the Karolinska University Hospital had been well aware of children with injuries as a result of hormone blockers for months before the injuries became public in November.
In one case, a girl who wanted to become a boy was put on puberty blockers at age 11 and developed serious side effects after five years of treatment, including osteoporosis and damage to the vertebrae in the child’s back.
“He felt so bad that he tried suicide attempts on several occasions. We didn’t understand, we thought our child would feel better from the treatment,” the mother of the child said.
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