On Tuesday, I relived my previous role as a fact-checker for the USA Today opinion section, despite working now for National Review. USA Today ran an article correcting “egregious misinformation” about “gender-affirming care.” The writer claimed that administering “puberty-blocking medicines” is “an intervention that is fully reversible.” I wrote a Corner post showing that the linked source did not support the claim; the source stated “[researchers] noted that because the study was conducted in rats, additional research would be needed to confirm the findings in humans.” This comment isn’t obscured in a tiny, easily missed footnote. Rather, it is in the second paragraph on the website.
The particularly damning fact for USA Today is that the study in question — a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the University of Northern Colorado — resists endorsing puberty-blocking drugs for humans. The experiment found that, weeks after stopping the hormone agonists, the female rats’ reproductive organs showed normal (albeit delayed) development. But there were consequences on their fertility: They had significantly smaller litters, and one rat that received puberty blockers did not achieve pregnancy. Other side effects were noted. The rats who received puberty blockers showed reduced voluntary running on a wheel and increased body mass. A portion of the study’s conclusion is as follows:
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