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Speaker 1: Like yesterday the Health Minister tells us they're pausing the

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Speaker 1: prescription for puberty blockers. They're concerned about long term impacts

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Speaker 1: existing patients, so we'll continue. The changes come into effect

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Speaker 1: December nineteen. Doctor John Cameron registered gp is with us

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Speaker 1: John morning as an issue you know and all the

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Speaker 1: things a GP might deal within any given day. Where

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Speaker 1: does puberty blockers sit.

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Speaker 2: It's a very small part of our life. I probably

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Speaker 2: would have maybe one client who's approached me over the

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Speaker 2: last twelve months for these sort of medicines.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and if I round up one hundred GPS, do

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Speaker 1: I get a range of views from GPS on their

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Speaker 1: view of them?

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Speaker 2: If you've got one hundred GPS, you've got two hundred opinions.

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Speaker 2: It's a normal way of life, mate.

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Speaker 1: Where's this decision come from?

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Speaker 2: This?

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Speaker 1: Is this an out of the blue type thing or not?

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Speaker 2: No, no, no. It's been a discussion in medical circles

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Speaker 2: for a long period of time. A major thing was

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Speaker 2: what's called the Test Report that came out of the

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Speaker 2: UK last year, where it was questioned about what was

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Speaker 2: going to be the long term health outcomes from puberty blockers. Now,

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Speaker 2: puberty blockers are not gender reidentification medicines, so they don't

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Speaker 2: turn male into female, female into male. All they do

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Speaker 2: is hold you in a pre pubertal state, so that

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Speaker 2: if and when you decide to change your gender, you're

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Speaker 2: not having to go back against the eight ball of

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Speaker 2: all the changes that would have occurred. Plus also gets

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Speaker 2: you through the hormonal turmoil of having hormones doing one

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Speaker 2: thing with your brain saying no, I'm a completely different gender.

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Speaker 2: So you've got to put it into that perspective for

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Speaker 2: a start. The problem that we've got is that yesaper

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Speaker 2: to be absolutely safe. If they weren't safe, we would

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Speaker 2: be stopping all access to these medicines. But as you said,

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Speaker 2: people who are on these medicines already will still be

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Speaker 2: able to carry on. What we don't know is we

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Speaker 2: just don't have enough evidence for long term safety and effectiveness.

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Speaker 2: So we're talking twenty thirty forty years because we're starting

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Speaker 2: these medicines and children of nine years of age. Now,

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Speaker 2: I would hope that the decision has been made on

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Speaker 2: health grounds, and I do believe it has been made

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Speaker 2: on health grounds rather than political ground. So we've got

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Speaker 2: to get it out of the political arena and put

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Speaker 2: it back into health where it should be.

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Speaker 1: That was my very next question. Do you think it's ideological?

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Speaker 1: And as if it is ideological, if a change of

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Speaker 1: government comes next year, we flip back and I'm getting

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Speaker 1: you on with another conversation.

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Speaker 2: I doubt it that this has been in big discussion,

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Speaker 2: and the problem with any discussion means and you get

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Speaker 2: completely polarized it views. So you get the proponents on

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Speaker 2: this side and the anties on this site, and it's

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Speaker 2: really hard to work where that middle ground should be.

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Speaker 2: I think putting a hold on it at the stage

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Speaker 2: medically is probably a good idea. It does not mean

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Speaker 2: that we're going to stop caring for these individuals. It

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Speaker 2: means that one of the tools that we have been

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Speaker 2: using we're going to put into the back pocket and

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Speaker 2: hold off unless we get really into a very dire situation.

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Speaker 2: We should be doing this in primary care, in conjunction

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Speaker 2: with secondary care, in conjunction with psychiatry, psychology, and chronology.

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Speaker 2: It's a team approach to this, and that doesn't mean

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Speaker 2: we're leaving the young people out to hang things that

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Speaker 2: we will have to do to work with them. We've

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Speaker 2: got other tools to use. It's just this one's been

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Speaker 2: put into the back pocket.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, John Good, and so I appreciate it. Doctor

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Speaker 1: John Cameron registered GP with us this morning. For more

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