Puberty blockers

Testosterone is important for normal male brain maturation. Here is a report of an 11 y/o boy on puberty blockers: IQ dropped 11% (80 to 71) after 17 mo.

As the EIC of the BMJ has said, PB are being used in a state of “profound scientific ignorance.”https://t.co/Cb23bBYHye

— William J. Malone, MD (@will_malone) July 17, 2019

Thanks to Steve for sending this my way.

The study mentioned in the tweet is sad, but useful:

1. The so-called "puberty blocker" is Lupron. That's an off-label drug. It's normally used in chemotherapies against prostate cancer in men and breast and ovarian cancers in women. It can cause significant side effects even in adults. Granted, most drugs aren't safe in large enough doses, or in certain populations, but giving Lupron to a little boy seems to be asking for trouble.
2. Of course, the critic might reply "n=1", i.e., you can't generalize from one case to the rest of the population. However, this isn't the only study where PBs have been shown to harm a child's (still developing) brain/IQ. For example, see here, here, here, and here.
3. Likewise, good overviews on puberty blockers in treating gender dysphoria here (Ryan T. Anderson) and here (Paul Hruz, Lawrence Mayer, Paul McHugh).
4. It really should be common sense not to give these kinds of drugs to little kids. A 10 year old boy at the time. Especially to a little kid with an already low IQ. A low IQ of 80 which dropped even further to 71. 80 is classified as "low average" in terms of IQ. 71 is classified as "borderline mental disability". 69 is where the mental disability classification begins. If a mentally deficient little boy thinks he might be a girl, then that might well be explained by the fact that he's a mentally deficient little boy rather than because he has "gender dysphoria". Isn't that common sense? You don't need a medical degree to know that.
5. Sure, this boy gave "consent", but he could easily have been persuaded by an adult to give consent. It's just taking advantage of a mentally deficient little kid. He's a guinea pig for experimental medicine based on a trendy social theory du jour.

   To be frank, it seems almost like a Nazi medical experiment where mentally deficient little kids are tricked into taking this or that drug to see what happens. I suppose a key distinction is the Nazi doesn't care about the kid, but the parents and doctors who advocate for puberty blockers believe it's in the kid's best interest (though there are some shady doctors out there). At best, that might make the latter less culpable if they're ignorant (particularly the parent, but one could argue physicians should know better), but I would think they're still complicit to some degree. Perhaps negligence?

6. This might have already done irreparable damage to the boy's cognitive development. Of course, progressives don't really care for kids with low IQs anyway. That's in evidence by the fact that the majority of abortions are performed on babies who have Down syndrome.