Health
Canadian media might not be able to ignore new studies on harmful gender transitions for minors
From LifeSiteNews
When the UK National Health Service’s bombshell Cass Review condemning gender “transition” for minors was published, virtually the entire Canadian press engaged in a voluntary blackout.
Unless you were reading an alternative news source, an international news source, or the National Post, it was as if Cass Review — and its findings — had simply never existed. Many media outlets did not run a single story; the state-funded CBC ran precisely one, and it was a laughable hatchet job claiming that the massive study was “biased.” They did not interview a single person associated with the research.
The Canadian press has functioned for years as a propaganda arm for the transgender movement, even as the gender ideology house of cards topples in in the U.S. and the UK, where there have been genuinely robust debates informed by scientific evidence rather than ideology. Thus, I wonder how they will deal with new studies by Canadian researchers that reach many of the same conclusions.
As Sharon Kirkey of the National Post reported. “The evidence surrounding the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children and teens identifying as transgender is of such low certainty it’s impossible to conclude whether the drugs help or harm, Canadian researchers are reporting.” The research was funded by the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM) and McMaster University, considered to one of Canada’s top institutions of higher hearing, and published this week in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
“There’s not enough reliable information,” said Chan Kulatunga-Moruzi, one of the authors of the two new reviews. “We really don’t have enough evidence to say that these procedures are beneficial. Few studies have looked at physical harm, so we have really no evidence of harm as well. There’s not a lot that we can say with certainty, based on the evidence.” (Here, I would note that there are now thousands of testimonies of detransitioners testifying to the harm that sex-change “treatments” have caused them, but this is a remarkable admission nonetheless.)
The researchers conclude that doctors should approach these “treatments” with extreme care, clearly communicating with parents and children and — notably — checking “whose values they are prioritizing” if they should decide to prescribe cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers. As Kirkey put it with devastating understatement: “Originally considered fully reversible, concerns are emerging about potential long-term or irreversible effects, the Canadian team wrote … Questions have been raised about the effects of fertility or what impact, if any, they might have on brain development.”
The researchers painstakingly went through the available evidence on both cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers (Kirkey irritatingly refers to them as “gender-affirming hormones”) for those up to 26 years old. To analyze the evidence, they “graded” it “using a scoring system co-developed by Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a celebrated McMaster University scientist who coined the phrase evidence-based medicine.” As Kirkey reported:
After screening 6,736 titles and abstracts involving puberty blockers, only 10 studies were included in their review. While children who received puberty blockers compared to those who don’t score higher on “global function” — quality of life, and general physical and psychological wellbeing — the evidence was of “very low certainty.” Very low, meaning researchers have “very little confidence in the effect estimate” and that the true effect “is likely to be substantially different from the estimate of effect.”
It gets worse. The research also debunked the perpetually asserted claim utilized by trans activists and their political allies to enforce their agenda: that these drugs are necessary to prevent depression and suicidal ideation. According to the researchers: “We are very uncertain about the causal effect of the (drugs) on depression. Most studies provided very low certainty of evidence about the outcomes of interest; thus, we cannot exclude the possibility of benefit or harm.” Again, despite the careful understatement, this is devastating: Thousands of children have been subjected to these treatments on the premise that they prevent harm and are harmless.
Indeed, the second review, which analyzed 24 studies, reached the similar conclusion of “very low confirmatory evidence of substantive change” not just in depression or health overall but even in gender dysphoria itself. As Kirkey noted: “Many studies suffered from missing data, small sample sizes, or lacked a comparison group.” The researchers concluded: “Since the current best evidence, including our systematic review and meta-analysis, is predominantly very low quality, clinicians must clearly communicate this evidence to patients and caregivers. Treatment decisions should consider the lack of moderate- and high-quality evidence, uncertainty about the effects of puberty blockers and patient’s values and preferences.”
Imagine for a moment that you are a teen or young person who started these treatments after having been told, with utter, aggressive confidence, by counselors, psychiatrists, and doctors that they were both harmless and necessary — that they could even save your life. Imagine being a parent who subjected your child to these treatments, convinced by “experts” that this was the best thing you could do to love your son or daughter. I have written these words too many times to count: This is a medical scandal of unprecedented proportions in this century, and those that perpetrated it must be held accountable.
From LifeSiteNews
Ontario’s euthanasia regulators have tracked 428 cases of possible criminal violations without a single criminal charge being laid.
Once again, a government report affirmed what every Canadian should know by now: People are being killed by euthanasia because they cannot access the care they actually need and in some cases are denied that care.
The “choice” that is left to them is a lethal injection. Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Death Review Committee’s (MDRC) latest report, “Evaluating Incurability, Irreversible Decline, and Reasonably Foreseeable Natural Death,” highlights this fact once again.
As Dr. Ramona Coelho, an advocate for people with disabilities and one of the most eloquent opponents of Canada’s MAiD regime highlighted in her analysis of the report, Health Canada dictates that a “person can only be considered incurable if there are no reasonable and effective treatments available (and) explicitly state that individuals cannot refuse all treatments to render themselves incurable, and thereby qualify for MAiD.”
However, the MDRC’s report cites cases that do not appear to qualify:
Consider Mrs. A: isolated, severely obese, depressed, and disconnected from care; she refused treatment and social support but requested MAiD. Instead of re-engaging her with care, MAiD clinicians deemed her incurable because she refused all investigations, and her life was ended.
Or Mr. B: a man with cerebral palsy in long-term care, he voluntarily stopped eating and drinking, leading to renal failure and dehydration. He was deemed eligible under Track 1 because his death was consequently considered “reasonably foreseeable.” No psychiatric expertise was consulted despite signs of psychosocial distress.
Or Mr. C: a man in his 70s with essential tremor, whose MAiD provider documented that his request was mainly driven by emotional suffering and bereavement.
In short, Coelho concludes, “Canada’s legal safeguards are failing. Federal guidelines are being ignored. The public deserves to know: Is Canada building a system that truly protects all Canadians – or one that expedites death for the vulnerable?” It has been clear what kind of system we have created for some time, which is why Canada is considered a cautionary tale even in the UK, where assisted suicide advocates violently and indignantly object to any comparisons of their proposed legislation and the Canadian regime.
The National Post also noted examples found in the MRDC’s report, noting that: “A severely obese woman in her 60s who sought euthanasia due to her ‘no longer having a will to live’ and a widower whose request to have his life ended was mainly driven by emotional distress and grief over his dead spouse are the latest cases to draw concerns that some doctors are taking an overly broad interpretation of the law.”
None of this seems to concern the federal government, much less law enforcement. Horror stories are simply not addressed, as if ignoring them means that they did not happen. Constant revelations of lawbreaking are met with silence. “A quarter of all Ontario MAiD providers may have violated the Criminal Code,” journalist Alexander Raikin warned last year in The Hub. “Does anyone care?” In fact, Ontario’s euthanasia regulators had tracked 428 cases of possible criminal violations – without a single criminal charge being laid.
“Canada’s leaders seem to regard MAiD from a strange, almost anthropological remove: as if the future of euthanasia is no more within their control than the laws of physics; as if continued expansion is not a reality the government is choosing so much as conceding,” Elaina Plott Calabro wrote in The Atlantic recently. “This is the story of an ideology in motion, of what happens when a nation enshrines a right before reckoning with the totality of its logic.”
There is an opportunity to stop the spread of Canada’s MAiD regime. MPs Tamara Jansen and Andrew Lawton are championing the “Right to Recover” Act, which would make it illegal to euthanize someone whose sole qualifying condition is mental illness. I urge each and every reader to get involved today.
From the Fraser Institute
By Nadeem Esmail, Nathaniel Li and Milagros Palacios
A typical Canadian family of four will pay an estimated $19,060 for public health-care insurance this year, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“Canadians pay a substantial amount of money for health care through a variety of taxes—even if we don’t pay directly for medical services,” said Nadeem Esmail, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2025.
Most Canadians are unaware of the true cost of health care because they never see a bill for medical services, may only be aware of partial costs collected via employer health taxes and contributions (in provinces that impose them), and because general government revenue—not a dedicated tax—funds Canada’s public health-care system.
The study estimates that a typical Canadian family consisting of two parents and two children with an average household income of $188,691 will pay $19,060 for public health care this year. Couples without dependent children will pay an estimated $17,338. Single Canadians will pay $5,703 for health care insurance, and single parents with one child will pay $5,934.
Since 1997, the first year for which data is available, the cost of healthcare for the average Canadian family has increased substantially, and has risen more quickly than its income. In fact, the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased 2.2 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.6 times as fast as the cost of housing, and 1.6 times as fast as the average income.
“Understanding how much Canadians actually pay for health care, and how much that amount has increased over time, is an important first step for taxpayers to assess the value and performance of the health-care system, and whether it’s financially sustainable,” Esmail said.
The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2025
- Canadians often misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system. This occurs partly because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of health care, and partly because Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care insurance.
- In 2025, preliminary estimates suggest the average payment for public health care insurance ranges from $5,213 to $19,060 for six common Canadian family types, depending on the type of family.
- Between 1997 and 2025, the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased 2.2 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.6 times as fast as the average income, and 1.6 times as fast as the cost of shelter. It also increased much more rapidly than the average cost of clothing, which has fallen in recent years.
- The 10 percent of Canadian families with the lowest incomes will pay an average of about $702 for public health care insurance in 2025. The 10 percent of Canadian families who earn an average income of $88,725 will pay an average of $8,292 for public health care insurance, and the families among the top 10 percent of income earners in Canada will pay $58,853.
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