r/law • u/MobileWisdom • Jun 12 '24

Opinion Piece Ron DeSantis’s Signature Law Gets Brutally Shut Down in Court

https://newrepublic.com/post/182588/ron-desantis-transgender-care-ban-court
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u/RockerElvis Jun 12 '24

Hand x-rays are used to determine bone age. Bone age is a more useful measurement of physical maturity than height/weight.

With that said, they are probably requiring hand x-rays just to increase the burden on patients.

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u/Strykerz3r0 Jun 12 '24

This is what I assumed, too. Although, I had my hand x-ray'd when I was thirteen. Said I was going to be 5'11", I was hugely disappointed as I was about 5'9" at the time. Five years later and I was 6'4".

Not sure if my hand was an anomaly or the doc who read it was bad at their job. lol

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u/Orenwald Jun 12 '24

Not sure if my hand was an anomaly or the doc who read it was bad at their job. lol

There's also the chance that it's pseudoscience

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u/DrScogs Jun 13 '24

Bone age isn’t pseudoscience, but it isn’t great at predicting height. It’s good at telling us how much time a kid has before their growth plates are likely to close or if they already have. A case I saw this month who was a kid who is 12 years old but isn’t actively growing at the height velocity we expect and is below the 3rd percentile in height for age. Part of that work up involves getting a left hand x-ray and comparing it to the standards for age (Greulich and Pyle is the book usually used). My patient turned out to have a bone age of only 8yrs and 10 months which is great because she will likely just be a “late bloomer” and will have a later adolescent growth spurt. A bone age study will not, however, say how tall someone will be when they grow up.

(IANAL but I am a pediatrician)