Thursday, July 28, 2022
The Left Pushed Puberty Blockers for Children, Now the FDA Issues Dire Warning About Permanent Damage
Democrats have continually promoted the idea of providing “gender-affirming” health care for children, such as puberty blockers. But the Food and Drug Administration has issued new warnings about one puberty blocker that could have severe side effects.
President Joe Biden himself has supported initiatives to “protect” such treatments for transgender individuals.
In celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, Biden issued an executive order “Reaffirming that transgender children have the right to access gender-affirming health care,” “Providing resources on the importance of gender-affirming care for children and adolescents” and “Advancing gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit.”
However, “gender-affirming” care can be dangerous.
In an announcement on July 1, the FDA added a new warning about gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists, which it previously approved for use.
The agency identified a serious potential side effect of GnRH agonists that could cause a surge of spinal fluid pressure in the brain.
That kind of pressure on the brain can cause headaches, nausea, double vision and even blindness, the drug management journal Formulary Watch reported.
Cases of these negative side effects have been found six times by the FDA in girls ages 5 to 12.
In these cases, the girls who were taking GnRH agonists were diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri.
Pseudotumor cerebri literally means “false brain tumor,” indicating it has the signs and symptoms of a tumor without one being there.
“The agency considered the cases clinically serious and, based on these reviews, determined that pseudotumor cerebri (idiopathic intracranial hypertension) should be added as a warning and precaution in product labeling for all GnRH agonist formulations approved for use in pediatric patients,” an FDA representative told Formulary Watch.
“Although the mechanism by which GnRH agonists may lead to development of pseudotumor cerebri has not been elucidated, and patients with CPP may have a higher baseline risk of developing pseudotumor cerebri compared with children without CPP, this potential serious risk associated with GnRH agonists justifies inclusion in product labeling,” the representative added.
The fact that the FDA is just now announcing possible severe side effects after having previously approved the drug is alarming.
Even aside from that, from a purely medical standpoint, the use of puberty blockers should be giving everyone serious pause. The physical ramifications of these treatments should give people serious doubts even if they ethically condone transgenderism.
By and large, doctors have no clue what the long-term effects of puberty blockers could be, as even the liberal New York Times acknowledged.
“Puberty blockers are largely considered safe for short-term use in transgender adolescents, with known side effects including hot flashes, fatigue and mood swings. But doctors do not yet know how the drugs could affect factors like bone mineral density, brain development and fertility in transgender patients,” the Times reported last year.
To be administering medical treatments whose long-term effects are not fully researched or understood is simply irresponsible — especially when the recipients are children.
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On the campaign trail, many Republicans see a civil war
Days before Maryland’s July 19 primary, Michael Peroutka stood up at an Italian restaurant in Rockville and imagined how a foreign enemy might attack America.
“We would expect them to make our borders porous,” Peroutka told the crowd, which had come to hear the Republicans running for state attorney general.
“We would expect them to make our cities unsafe places to live. We would expect them to try to ruin our economy.”
The country was “at war,” he explained, “and the enemy has co-opted members and agencies and agents of our government.”
On Tuesday, Peroutka easily dispatched a more moderate Republican to win the nomination.
State Delegate Dan Cox, who won Donald Trump’s endorsement after supporting the former president’s effort to subvert the 2020 election, also dispatched a Republican endorsed by the state’s popular governor, Larry Hogan.
Both candidates described a country that was not merely in trouble, but being destroyed by leaders who despise most Americans - effectively part of a civil war. In both swing states and safe seats, many Republicans say that liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them.
Referring to the coronavirus and 2020 protests over police brutality, Cox told supporters at a rally last month, “We were told 14 days to bend the curve, and yet antifa was allowed to burn our police cars in the streets.”
He continued: “Do you really think, with what we’re seeing - with the riots that have happened, that we should not have something to defend our families with? This is why we have the Second Amendment.”
The rhetoric is bracing, if not entirely new.
Left-leaning commentators made liberal use of the word “fascism” to describe Trump’s presidency. The baseless theory that President Barack Obama was undermining American power as a foreign agent was popular with some Republicans, including Trump, who succeeded Obama in the White House.
Many Democrats saw the backlash to Obama as specific to his race, and saw Biden as unlikely to inspire mass opposition to Trump in the presidential election. But many Republicans also portray Biden as a malevolent figure - a vessel for a hateful leftist campaign to weaken America.
“It’s purposeful,” said former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who is running in next month’s special election for the state’s sole House seat, in an interview with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. “It’s all about the fundamental transformation of America. You only fundamentally transform something for which you have disdain.”
That argument has been dramatised in ads that, for instance, show one armed candidate appearing to charge into the home of a political enemy, and another warning of “the mob” that threatens ordinary Americans. In many cases the candidates are brandishing firearms while threatening harm to liberals or other enemies.
In central Florida, US Army veteran Cory Mills has run ads about his company selling tear gas that was used to quell riots in 2020. “You may have seen some of our work,” he says, introducing a montage of what are labelled “antifa,” “radical left,” and “Black Lives Matter” protesters running from the gas.
(Antifa, a movement of historically modest numbers, has been routinely described as a cause of widespread violence in America by rightwing commentators, including former President Donald Trump.)
In northwest Ohio, a campaign video for Republican congressional nominee J.R. Majewski shows him walking through a dilapidated factory, holding a semiautomatic weapon, warning that Democrats will “destroy our economy” with purposefully bad policies.
“Their agenda is bringing America to its knees, and I am willing to do whatever it takes,” says Majewski, who’s seeking a House seat in a district around Toledo that has been redrawn to make Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, beatable. “If I have to kick down doors, that’s just what patriots do.”
In Missouri, Republican Senate candidate Eric Greitens has issued two ads this summer in which he holds or fires weapons, vowing to go “RINO hunting” - for “Republicans in Name Only” - in one ad and targeting the “political establishment” in the second.
Dreading deep losses in November, some Democrats have spent money to help Republican candidates who talk this way under the theory that they will be easier to beat in November. The Democratic Governors Association spent more than $US1.1 million on positive ads for Cox, as he was telling voters that they might one day have to battle antifa with their own weapons.
Candidates like Majewski, however, have won with no assistance from Democrats, aided instead by high turnout and grass-roots energy. The idea that the Biden administration’s policies are designed to fail - to raise petrol prices, or increase the cost of food - is a popular campaign theme.
Pollsters have found that Americans are worried about the country sticking together; a YouGov poll released last month had a majority of both Democrats and Republicans agreeing that America would one day “cease to be a democracy”.
Republican wins since 2020, including a sweep in Virginia’s state elections and victory in a special election in June between two Hispanic candidates in South Texas, haven’t lightened the GOP mood. Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist who works with Trump-backed US Senate candidates J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona, said that last year’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large companies was a turning point in views of the Biden administration, even after it was blocked by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
“It’s the number one thing that caused people to go from ‘maybe this is incompetence’ to ‘there’s something else going on here,’ ” Surabian said. “Like, do these people actually want a Chinese-style social credit system?”
Rick Shaftan, a conservative strategist working with Republican challengers this cycle, said that the party’s voters were nervously watching crime rates in the cities, asking whether public safety was being degraded on purpose. He also pointed to government responses to the pandemic as a reason that those voters, and their candidates, were nervous.
“People paid a lot of attention to the truckers,” said Shaftan, referring to Canadian protests against vaccine mandates that occupied Ottawa this year and briefly shut down an international bridge. “Canada’s supposed to be a democracy. . . . People worry: Can that happen here?”
The arrests of hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has frequently been cited by Republican candidates as proof of a government war on its people.
In early July, at a town hall meeting in southwest Washington state, Republican congressional hopeful Joe Kent told his audience that the “phony riot” on January 6 was being “weaponised against anybody who dissents against what the government is telling us,” from parents angry about public school education to people who had questioned the outcome of the 2020 election.
“These are the types of tactics that I would see in Third World countries when I was serving overseas,” Kent told the crowd gathered in a gazebo in Rochester, one of the towns currently represented by Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican. “You’d see the Praetorian guard or the intelligence services grab the opposition and throw them in the dungeons. I never thought I’d see that in America.”
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Democrat Asks Ruger Not to Sell Certain Type of Ammo; Ruger CEO Responds, ‘We Do Not Sell Ammunition’
Typical Democrat isolation from reality
Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois, speaks during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., US, on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. He asked Sturm, Ruger, & Co. to pledge not to sell ammunition that pierces body armor, to which Ruger CEO Christopher Killoy responded that Ruger is not involved in ammunition sales.
The exchange between Krishnamoorthi and Killoy occurred during the Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Wednesday hearing on “practices and profits of gun manufacturers.”
Krishnamoorthi used his time to question witnesses on a variety of issues, the last of which was police officer safety. He asked Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel to commit to “not sell a weapon that tears through bulletproof vests” and then moved to the next witness when Daniel talked about his company’s commitment to self-defense.
Krishnamoorthi addressed Killoy, saying, “[I] assume you won’t sell a weapon that tears through bulletproof vests, will you?”
Christopher Killoy, President and CEO of Sturm, Ruger and Company, Inc., testifies virtually during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing
Killoy responded, “Congressman, with all due respect, the ability to pierce body armor typically relates to the ammunition, not the firearm.”
Krishnamoorthi shot back, “So you will not sell that ammunition either, will you?”
Killoy explained, “Congressman, we do not sell ammunition. We sell firearms in a variety of calibers.”
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What Banner on Boston Church Says About Decline of Christianity
Dennis Prager
On the front of one of the oldest and most beautiful churches in the country, the Church of the Covenant in Boston, hangs a large banner on which is written:
“And God said …
“Protect Abortion Access 4 All
“Ensure Black Lives Matter
“Honor Bodily Autonomy
“Defend LGBTQ+ Rights
“End Voter Suppression
“Turn Guns into Plows
“Abandon Fossil Fuels
“Provide Sanctuary
“Abolish Prisons
“Disarm Hate
“Speak Truth
“Breathe
“In other words …
“Love”
If you needed one example of how destructive leftism has been to mainstream Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and to non-Orthodox Judaism, this banner would suffice.
God says, “Protect Abortion Access For All”? Where? Why? Terminating innocent life, that’s God’s will? Does this include abortions of viable babies undergone by healthy mothers? Is that, too, God’s will?
“Ensure black lives matter”? Blacks, like every other racial, ethnic, and national grouping of human beings, are created in God’s image. But if this banner implies support for the group Black Lives Matter, that’s another matter. God abhors groups that affirm racism. Unlike the left, the Bible knows that anyone, black or white, can be racist.
As regards LGBTQ+, the Bible goes out of its way to uphold divine distinctions such as good and evil, God and human, human and animal, and male and female. When God creates the human being, the Bible asserts this last distinction as clearly as possible: “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).
“Turn guns into plows” is, of course, taken from the Prophet Isaiah’s call to “Beat your swords into plows” (Isaiah 2:4). Unfortunately for the Church of the Covenant, another biblical prophet says the very opposite: “Beat your plows into swords … let the weak say, I am strong” (Joel 4:10).
Unlike the left, the Bible understands that while the ultimate dream is that human beings have no need for swords, until that messianic age, the weak must have swords.
As for abandoning fossil fuels, these ubiquitous sources of energy have been one of God’s gifts to humanity. Without them, the modern world would not have been possible. No hospitals, no reliable heat in the winter (not to mention cold in the summer), no transportation beyond riding animals. No modern medicine. Nothing in the way of modern technology. Just a primitive life—and a short and painful one at that.
God would say before abandoning these fuels, make sure you have a reliable substitute. (We do: nuclear power.) Until then, thank God for his gift of fossil fuels.
As regards sanctuary, if the meaning is sanctuaries for illegal aliens, on the basis of what biblical idea does the Church of the Covenant infer that God wants America—or any other country—to have open borders?
“Abolishing prisons” alone is an idea that should alienate any rational and moral human being from the left. Abolishing prisons means allowing an enormous number of innocent people to be murdered and beaten, of women to be raped, of shops to be looted, and of children to be molested. Nothing exemplifies the moral idiocy at the heart of leftism as well as “abolish prisons.”
Perhaps some prominent conservative Christian church should put up a banner addressing the same subjects:
“God said …
“Protect the Life Of Mothers—and Their Unborn Babies
“Human Worth Is Not Related to Race
“Honor Bodily Autonomy—End Vaccine Mandates
“There Are Only Two Sexes: Male and Female
“Protect Voting Integrity
“Defend Yourself and Others—Get a Gun
“I Have Blessed Mankind With Energy
“Protect Your Citizens by Protecting Your Borders
“Imprison the Guilty to Protect the Innocent
“If You Love Me, Hate Evil (Psalms 97:10)
“Speak Truth—Because There Is Only One Truth
“In other words …
“Love”
If a traditional church did put up such a banner, it would make national news and its leaders would be dismissed as right-wing religious zealots for putting words into God’s mouth. Only left-wing churches and synagogues are allowed to speak for the Almighty.
Of all the Ten Commandments, only one states that its violation cannot be forgiven. It is the Third Commandment: “Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain because He will not forgive whoever takes His name in vain.”
Nearly everyone familiar with the commandment thinks the commandment prohibits saying the word “God” outside of prayer or Bible study. But it cannot mean that. What kind of God would forgive a murderer, but not someone who said, “God, did I have a tough day at work today”?
Clearly, the Third Commandment must mean something else. And it does. As I explain in my Bible commentary, “The Rational Bible,” the Hebrew actually says, “Do not carry the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” That is, “carry,” not “take.”
Doing evil in God’s name or attaching God’s name to false or immoral ideas is the one sin God will not forgive. And that is the sin of left-wing churches and synagogues. They carry God’s name in vain. Indeed, they desecrate it.
What is happening to Christianity and Judaism provides yet another example of the most important principle of modern life: Whatever the left touches, it destroys.
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Australian public broadcaster more interested in silencing alternative views
For a media behemoth that regularly assails its targets (fairly and unfairly) with gusto and aggression, the ABC is awfully sensitive to criticism.
It should not be. The national broadcaster should expect every taxpayer to have a view about its operations, and should aim to be part of public debate, for good or for ill, every single day.
This is the ABC’s raison d’etre. If there are high expectations for the organisation they are warranted by the lofty ambitions of the charter and more than a billion dollars a year in taxpayer funding – and given its staff are on the public payroll they should be acutely aware of a natural tendency towards the collectivist side of politics.
Yet Aunty lashes out at critics (in response to my 2013 suggestion its budget should be trimmed, it portrayed me up a dog) and runs from scrutiny. After 90 years at the centre of the nation’s cultural and political life, the ABC still seems uncertain about its role.
The Sky News Australia special investigation ‘Your ABC Exposed’ examines one of the country’s most important… cultural institutions and whether the taxpayer-funded service unites or divides Australians. As one of the country’s most revered and important cultural institutions marks its 90th anniversary, Sky News will explore the Australian More
For the past few months, I have been working on a Sky News documentary to mark the public broadcaster’s 90th anniversary and ask whether it is fit for purpose. Despite multiple requests for interviews to ABC chair Ita Buttrose, managing director David Anderson, other directors, senior managers, and on-air presenters, past and present, we managed only one acceptance.
Former 7.30 Report host and staff-elected board member Quentin Dempster engaged in the project. Dempster has debated media issues with me previously on Sky News and there is little we agree on (he belongs to the Twitter school of News Corp media conspiracists) but I respect him for his willingness to sit down and engage in civil debate.
That mature approach contrasts with former ABC Melbourne radio host Jon Faine who responded to our request for an interview by penning a rant in The Age against Sky News Australia, Sky News UK, Fox News, Nigel Farage, the “Brexit calamity” and Donald Trump. Although, as far as I can recall, Faine and I have never spoken, he had firm views about me as an “avowed sledger” of the ABC.
Faine declared that his “animus” towards me stemmed from the fact that apart from hosting television on Sky, I had previously worked for Liberal politicians Alexander Downer and Malcolm Turnbull, wrote for this newspaper, and “consistently expressed resolute hostility” towards the ABC. He said I could not present a balanced view of the national broadcaster (I think he meant uncritical).
Many decades behind an ABC microphone and Faine still could not grasp the concept of embracing a diversity of views and encouraging robust discussion. Instead of rising to the challenge to defend or promote his beloved ABC, he preferred snide potshots from entrenched positions.
Oh well, we tried. But you have got to wonder about the unwillingness to engage in debate – for the documentary I resorted to doorstopping Anderson on his way out of an ABC charity event.
This points to a deeply troubling polarisation of public debate, where rather than seeing a contest of ideas in the public square we are seeing different views contained within discrete, self-affirming echo-chambers. It is the Americanisation and Twitterfication of debate, and it should be resisted.
The ABC is best placed to counter this trend. Its charter demands a reflection of “cultural diversity” as well as delivering “objectivity” and “impartiality” yet it constantly fields stacked panels and programs as if the overwhelming majority of the populace subscribes to a green left worldview. Topics that are most deserving of analysis and interrogation – such as climate change, energy options, immigration, the Indigenous voice to parliament, and our pandemic response – too often play out in monochrome on the national broadcaster. On these issues and more, instead of spirited debate there seems to be a corporate view and a relentless chorus of agreement among its staff.
The ABC seeks to win arguments not on their merits but by silencing alternative views. It is little wonder then that the ABC and its presenters lack the ability to discuss and defend their own behaviour.
This must say something about the depth of their conviction. It is almost impossible to carry an argument publicly if you do not believe it.
Who at the ABC could seriously contend it does not exhibit an ideological bias towards the green left (even a board member, Joseph Gersh, has admitted the national broadcaster’s “vibe” is “more left than right” and that it should have more conservative voices), or that it has not engaged in erroneous vigilante journalism against mainly conservative targets such as Cardinal George Pell, Christian Porter, Alan Tudge, and Scott Morrison?
But if the ABC is not objective, and does not reflect the diversity of views across the country, then it is failing to adhere to its charter – that is, the law, under the ABC Act. The board, management, and the responsible government minister (now Michelle Rowland) should not stand for this.
As former board member Janet Albrechtsen says in my documentary, the answer is quite simple. “It has got a charter,” Albrechtsen explains, “all it needs to do is abide by that charter and it would produce terrific content.”
Not only would a diversity of views ensure the ABC abides by the law and delivers on fairness and pluralism, it would also make it much more entertaining and compelling. Yet too often this does not happen; on the rare occasions ABC presenters have right-of-centre commentators on their programs they feel the need to explain themselves to the Twitter mob.
If the ABC was more pluralistic and representative, it would have broader support across the population and political spectrum, and would more easily defend itself in public debate. By living in denial and failing to act, it condemns itself to a defensive posture.
It should be unthinkable that a prime minister would want to avoid appearing on the national broadcaster the way Morrison did during the last election campaign. But the fault lies with the ABC – it should be an unbiased and indispensable platform for national political debate.
That role cannot be fulfilled when its chief political reporter Andrew Probyn describes Tony Abbott (in a news report, mind you) as the “most destructive” politician in a generation, or its chief current affairs political reporter Laura Tingle uses social media to gratuitously accuse Morrison of “ideological bastardry”. It is laughable that such obvious transgressions go unremedied, and the ABC and its supporters accuse the conservative politicians of bloody-mindedness rather than vice versa.
In the interests of fairness, and on behalf of at least half of the population who do not wish to fund a green left broadcaster, this needs to be fixed. We seem to have reached a stage in this country where ideology is more prevalent in our publicly funded media than it is in our politics.
In 1932 the establishment of the ABC was an inspirational reform, embracing the relatively new technology of radio to bind together a disparate population spread thinly across a vast continent. The Australian Broadcasting Commission, as it was then called, was our only national media organisation.
If the national broadcaster did not exist today there would be no imperative to create it because we have instant and unprecedented access to local, national and global information and communication services. The ABC’s response to this new media landscape has been to expand into every digital niche, trying to pump its content into all available markets and in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
Not only does this strategy potentially crowd out commercial media – large, small, existing, and prospective – but it stretches the ABC’s resources and ambition.
The organisation would do better to focus on doing what others cannot.
And that should bring it back to the ABC Act and key words such as accurate, impartial, objective, balance and diversity. If the national broadcaster were to deliver on these, it could redefine itself as a central arena for the contest of ideas.
In an increasingly polarised media space, the ABC is making a grave error by drifting to one pole. It could be the place – should be the place – for the crosspollination of views and arguments.
With digital giants, media silos and endless algorithms conspiring to feed people only what they already know or like, a genuinely diverse and rational public square is likely to become increasingly rare and even more sorely needed. If the ABC were committed to such a role, it would guarantee itself a fruitful role for another 90 years.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
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