Easy access to puberty blockers has seen New Zealand children become one of the most medicated populations in the world – when it comes to gender-dysphoria drugs.
The New Zealand Medical Journal has today published a report which shows in 2022, 410 children aged between 12 and 17 were taking puberty blockers. That is 104 children in every 100,000 in that age group. Using England and Wales combined as a comparison, New Zealand’s result is 11 times higher.
Sadly, the rates of puberty blocker prescriptions to those aged 11 and under were not far behind, registering in the high 200’s.
Daughters were the most affected, with higher instances of puberty blockers being prescribed to girls compared to boys.
The New Zealand Medical Journal states that the main reasons for higher prescribing are likely to be found in our health system. These include easier access to assessment than other countries, a lower threshold for diagnosis of gender dysphoria as well as a greater likelihood of recommending puberty blockers than other treatments.
The article’s authors, Charlotte Paul, Simon Tegg and Sarah Donovan, point out that in the likes of England, Wales and even the Netherlands, specialist services have developed detailed protocols for the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and for psychological assessment…which are lacking when it comes to New Zealand’s health system.
A myriad of countries have already made moves to either cease or severely limit the amount of puberty blockers prescribed, due to their own studies indicating the drugs cause more harm than good. These include England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
New Zealand took a liberal stance, and as mentioned in the NZMJ report, moved quickly to mirror the Netherlands who first introduced puberty blockers back in the 1990’s.
Health regulators, with full support of successive NZ governments, administered these drugs to kiwis through easy access and low thresholds.
Kiwi children have been the victims of the transgender ideology being rammed down our throats without compromise. Even when numerous NZ parents decided to protect their own children from this manipulation, the government doubled down on efforts to enforce the ideology. In 2022, the Conversion Therapy Law came into force which made it an offence, possibly leading to jail time, to steadfastly counsel your gender-confused child to take other options.
However, there is a glimmer of hope in this report. Statistics from 2023 show that puberty blocker prescriptions have fallen slightly in New Zealand from its all-time high in 2022. It seems the concerns being raised in other parts of the world are having an affect here.
Given other countries are jumping off the puberty blocker train in their droves…will our government and health regulators take heed of what’s happening? Will they read this report and get nervous? Or will they pat themselves on the back, as the new world leader in pushing puberty blockers, and say full steam ahead.
More to come…
*Commentary by Family First Staff Writers
