Biased letter opens Streeting’s puberty blockers decision up to challenge

When the health secretary Wes Streeting paused the trial on puberty blockers for trans youth, he cited “new concerns” about the “wellbeing of children and young people”. Good Law Project can reveal that these concerns were raised by Professor Jacob George – a senior figure who the medicines regulator removed from any involvement in the trial because of serious concerns over his impartiality.

The NHS set up the puberty blockers trial, run by King’s College London, following the recommendation of the controversial Cass Review. On 11 February, George wrote to Streeting raising the spectre that the trial might cause “long-term biological harms” and suggesting that the lower age limit should be raised to 14. A week later the minister paused the trial. But when the health department published the letter (PDF), George’s name was redacted.

These supposed concerns were widely derided. Even Dr Hilary Cass told the Observer there “are no new research findings” and that the medicines regulator “hasn’t presented any new evidence”.

“It feels to me like they are responding to political pressure rather than to science,” Cass said.

The government admitted last week that George had written the letter, throwing Streeting’s decision to pause the trial into doubt. The medicines regulator removed George from any involvement with the trial on 27 February, after the Times revealed he had posted a large number of tweets expressing “gender critical” views.

“In the posts, now deleted,” the Times reported, “he criticised the ‘well-meaning idiocy’ of those in the NHS in denying what he called the ‘Basic biological fact’ that gender is set at birth. He praised JK Rowling as a ‘treasure of our time’ when she welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex. And in another post, when questions arose whether Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif was a woman, he said ‘the denial of a basic biological fact is concerning’.”

The health department claims that George was removed from any involvement with the trial as a “precautionary” step. But the law requires that decision-makers are not only without bias, but also that they do not appear to be biased – a threshold clearly breached by George’s social media posts.

When Streeting paused the trial, the only source he cited was George’s letter – advice that we now know was fatally infected by bias.

Good Law Project have now asked the minister to confirm that George’s letter was the sole basis for his decision, and whether he was aware, when he announced the pause, of any information which would call into question the professor’s impartiality.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Streeting’s next steps, and whether he will stand by a decision that was based on advice tainted with bias.