Silence the doctors, harm the children

The lesson for modern medicine is not that today's doctors' compliance culture is comparable to those crimes. That would be absurd.

The lesson is simpler and far more important.

When doctors are discouraged from questioning policy, when regulators punish professional dissent, and when ideology replaces open scientific debate, the ethical safeguards of medicine begin to erode.

And once those safeguards weaken, patient safety inevitably follows.

The global evidence shift being ignored

The debate surrounding the treatment of gender-distressed minors is not fringe or ideological. It is one of the most critical medical discussions happening globally.

Major international reviews are now raising serious questions about the evidence base for medical interventions in children.

The UK's landmark Cass Review concluded that the evidence supporting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors is weak and uncertain.

Following this review, the UK moved to restrict routine prescribing of puberty blockers while further evidence is gathered.

Trials examining these drugs have even been paused due to concerns about infertility, bone density loss and potential impacts on brain development.

These are not trivial risks. They involve sterilisation, irreversible physical changes and disruption of normal biological development.

And yet in Australia these interventions continue to be provided despite our own medicine safety regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) acknowledging it lacks the data required to properly assess their risks. The same questions were raised during the provisional approval of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines , though that is a separate debate.

That should concern every parent in this country.