By Dr. J. Edward Les

The thalidomide saga is particularly instructive: Canada was the last developed country to pull thalidomide from its shelves — three months during which babies continued to be born in this country with absent or deformed limbs

Physicians have a duty to put forward the best possible evidence, not ideology, based treatments

Late last month, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) announced that it, along with three Alberta doctors, had filed a constitutional challenge to Alberta’s Bill 26 “to protect the relationship between patients, their families and doctors when it comes to making treatment decisions.”

Bill 26, which became law last December, prohibits doctors in the province from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapies for those under 16; it also bans doctors from performing gender-reassignment surgeries on minors (those under 18).

The unprecedented CMA action follows its strongly worded response in February 2024 to Alberta’s (at the time) proposed legislation:

“The CMA is deeply concerned about any government proposal that restricts access to evidence-based medical care, including the Alberta government’s proposed restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for pediatric transgender patients.”

But here’s the problem with that statement, and with the CMA’s position: the evidence supporting the “gender affirmation” model of care — which propels minors onto puberty blockers, cross-gender hormones, and in some cases, surgery — is essentially non-existent. That’s why the United Kingdom’s Conservative government, in the aftermath of the exhaustive four-year-long Cass Review, which laid bare the lack of evidence for that model, and which shone a light on the deeply troubling potential for the model’s irreversible harm to youth, initiated a temporary ban on puberty blockers — a ban made permanent last December by the subsequent Labour government. And that’s why other European jurisdictions like Finland and Sweden, after reviews of gender affirming care practices in their countries, have similarly slammed the brakes on the administration of puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to minors.

It’s not only the Europeans who have raised concerns. The alarm bells are ringing loudly within our own borders: earlier this year, a group at McMaster University, headed by none other than Dr. Gordon Guyatt, one of the founding gurus of the “evidence-based care” construct that rightfully underpins modern medical practice, issued a pair of exhaustive systematic reviews and meta analyses that cast grave doubts on the wisdom of prescribing these drugs to youth.

And yet, the CMA purports to be “deeply concerned about any government proposal that restricts access to evidence-based medical care,” which begs the obvious question: Where, exactly, is the evidence for the benefits of the “gender affirming” model of care? The answer is that it’s scant at best. Worse, the evidence that does exist, points, on balance, to infliction of harm, rather than provision of benefit.

CMA President Joss Reimer, in the group’s announcement of the organization’s legal action, said:

“Medicine is a calling. Doctors pursue it because they are compelled to care for and promote the well-being of patients. When a government bans specific treatments, it interferes with a doctor’s ability to empower patients to choose the best care possible.”

Indeed, we physicians have a sacred duty to pursue the well-being of our patients. But that means that we should be putting forward the best possible treatments based on actual evidence.

When Dr. Reimer states that a government that bans specific treatments is interfering with medical care, she displays a woeful ignorance of medical history. Because doctors don’t always get things right: look to the sad narratives of frontal lobotomies, the oxycontin crisis, thalidomide, to name a few.

The thalidomide saga is particularly instructive: it illustrates what happens when a government drags its heels on necessary action. Canada was the last developed country to pull thalidomide, given to pregnant women for morning sickness, from its shelves, three months after it had been banned everywhere else — three months during which babies continued to be born in this country with absent or deformed limbs, along with other severe anomalies. It’s a shameful chapter in our medical past, but it pales in comparison to the astonishing intransigence our medical leaders have displayed — and continue to display — on the youth gender care file.

A final note (prompted by thalidomide’s history), to speak to a significant quibble I have with Alberta’s Bill 26 legislation: as much as I admire Premier Danielle Smith’s courage in bringing it forward, the law contains a loophole allowing minors already on puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to continue to take them. Imagine if, after it was removed from the shelves in 1962, government had allowed pregnant women already on the drug to continue to take thalidomide. Would that have made any sense? Of course not. And the same applies to puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones: they should be banned outright for all youth.

That argument is the kind our medical associations should be making — and would be making, if they weren’t so firmly in the grasp, seemingly, of ideologues who have abandoned evidence-based medical care for our youth.

J. Edward Les is a Calgary pediatrician, a senior fellow with the  Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy,  and co-author of “Teenagers, Children, and Gender Transition Policy: A Comparison of Transgender Medical Policy for Minors in Canada, the United States, and Europe.” 

From LifeSiteNews

By Robert Jones

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has dismissed every member of the CDC’s top vaccine advisory panel, citing what he described as a “decades” of “conflicts of interest” and “skewed science” in the vaccine regulatory system.

RFK Jr.’s abrupt decision to “retire” all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday and confirmed by HHS shortly thereafter.

The move marks the most sweeping reform to federal vaccine policy in years and follows months of internal reviews and mounting public skepticism.

Kennedy accused the ACIP of being “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” claiming “it has never recommended against a vaccine.”

“The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies,” Kennedy wrote. “This will ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.”

ACIP holds the power to influence which vaccines are recommended by the CDC and covered by insurers. But according to Kennedy, it has failed in its duty to protect the public.

He cited multiple government investigations—dating back to 2000 and 2009—finding that ACIP members were routinely advising on products from pharmaceutical firms with which they had financial ties. Committee members were also issued conflict-of-interest waivers from the CDC.

Kennedy pointed to the 1997 vote approving the Rotashield vaccine – later withdrawn for causing severe bowel obstructions in infants – as a case study in regulatory failure. Four of the eight members who voted for it had financial stakes in rotavirus vaccines under development.

He explained “retiring” the 17 members, “some of whom were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration,” by saying that without such a move, “the Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority” until 2028.

CNBC warned the firings could “undermine vaccinations” and erode trust among scientists. But Kennedy, a longtime vaccine industry sceptic, maintains that trust has already “collapsed” – and that restoring it requires nothing less than a full reset.

Under Kennedy’s leadership, HHS has already halted recommendations for routine COVID-19 shots for healthy children and pregnant women and cancelled COVID-era programs to fast-track new vaccines.

It remains unclear who will replace the outgoing ACIP members, though HHS confirmed the committee will still meet later this month, now under new leadership.

“The new members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry,” he promised. “They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry—unafraid to ask hard questions.”