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2. The council’s conclusions were universally positive for gender-affirming care: it endorsed the treatments as careful, lawful, and effective, framed quick access as a matter of the right to health, warned that “doing nothing” is harmful, cast aside the Cass Review as not applicable to Dutch care.

3. The review was commissioned in May 2024 in the wake of the Cass Review. The Health Council’s committee ran systematic literature searches and consulted outside clinical experts chosen for their differing perspectives on the care—a list that included Hilary Cass herself.

4. The panel was chaired by Olaf Dekkers, a Leiden University Medical Center professor of internal medicine whose academic specialty is research methodology, and seated professors of health law and medical ethics alongside practicing physicians and psychiatrists.

"However, these uncertainties do not provide sufficient grounds for the committee to recommend restructuring the current care pathway. In reaching this conclusion, the committee takes into account that denying treatment could also be harmful to mental health."

2/2 "According to the committee, these uncertainties are important factors that must be carefully discussed with adolescents and their parents as part of the informed consent process."

3/3 "According to the committee, discontinuation and regret should not necessarily be considered measures of the quality of care. Discontinuation can, in fact, be the result of a careful exploratory process."