A researcher’s hiding of a study that found no mental health improvement for minors taking puberty blockers only hurt children and parents, and bordered on malpractice.

That’s the considered opinion of Beth Serio, registered nurse and external relations manager at Do No Harm, a national association of medical professionals fighting woke politics in health care.

The New York Times reported that Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy sat on her taxpayer-funded, National Institutes of Health $10 million research because she was fearful the findings would be “weaponized” against the use of puberty blockers in minors.

In other words, her study – in which 95 minors with an average age of 11 given puberty blockers starting in 2015 saw no improvement in mental health – didn’t bolster her own advocacy for their use. So she sat on the results and chose not to make them public.

“I think it’s terrible for a doctor and a researcher to knowingly withhold the results of a study because it doesn’t serve or advance their own ideology,” Serio told The Heartlander in an exclusive interview Wednesday. “This is the exact opposite of what the scientific process should look like, and it’s certainly the opposite of what good, sound medical care looks like. …

“Hiding the results of this study means that they made a deliberate choice to allow children to continue to be harmed by the trans industry. Doctors have a special responsibility to present the truth, the scientific evidence-based truth, free of ideology and bias. 

“So, to withhold the results of a study simply because it does not serve your particular ideology is an absolute abdication of their duty as a doctor.”

That sounds a lot like malpractice, doesn’t it?

“I would say so,” says Serio. “I would say so.”

The mental health of gender-confused children – who may be confused in large part because of the gender-fluid ideology that’s washed over schools and leftist media – is at the core of all of this.

When Olson-Kennedy’s study found no improvement in mental health through the use of puberty blockers, she tried to claim the kids in her experiment were already fine mentally. Not true: as many as 25% of them reported poor mental health going into the study. Yet, they found no comfort after taking the body-changing puberty blockers.

Hiding those results, Serio argues, is lying by omission.

But the “trans industry” lies more affirmatively, she argues.

“The trans industry for a long time has really pushed this particular lie: They tell a parent of a confused child, ‘Would you rather have a dead son or a living daughter?’ And they threaten that if you do not allow your child to be medicalized and make potentially permanent changes to their body, that their mental health will suffer to the point of possibly committing suicide. 

“But what we know is, actually it’s the exact opposite. Children who go on puberty blockers or take cross-sex hormones have much higher rates of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, even suicidal ideation. 

“And that’s, of course, in addition to the many other physiological adverse effects they can experience from these medications, such as neurological problems, issues in their brain development, issues in their bone development and potentially future infertility or sterility.”

Indeed, the United Kingdom has recoiled from the use of puberty blockers in the wake of the Cass Review, which cited “remarkably weak” evidence in support of such treatments.

“At Do No Harm, we are completely opposed to any type of sex-change intervention on a minor,” Serio says. “We believe that a child cannot possibly consent to, or understand, what they are going through, what they could be going through in medical intervention, and the side-effects that they are risking, both short-term and long-term. 

“As they say, there’s a reason why we don’t allow our 12- or 13-year-old children to get a tattoo because we know that they can’t truly understand or think through the lifelong decision that they are making. 

“That’s always been a long-accepted fact. But when it comes to the trans industry, what we are told is the exact opposite by the people who push these interventions: that children are perfectly capable of consenting in this one particular area, even though it’s such an accepted thing that we don’t let them consent in so many other areas.”

Beware scientific evidence performed by partisans with a dog in the fight, Serio says – calling Olson-Kennedy “one of the premier gender activists in this country.”

Has this happened before – that a researcher has shelved a study because he or she disagrees with the outcome? And what should happen to such a researcher?

“You know, nothing comes to mind,” Serio says. “I couldn’t say it’s never happened, but … I’m not sure that there is a really great precedent for what we’re seeing right now in history. …

“I certainly think that at a bare minimum, a researcher who makes that choice should absolutely never, ever be granted any money again to conduct a similar type of research.

“Again, this was taxpayer-funded grant money. We as the public have a right, I think, to direct where this money is going, if we’re the ones paying for it, and we need to be funding doctors and researchers who are willing to actually look for the truth, and publish the truth, whether they like the results or not.”