The Drug Sacrificing the Health of a Generation of Children
Despite its troubling past, laden with corruption, it continues to be used off-label.
Drug maker Abbvie recently won a court case in which they sued Takeda Pharmaceutical, the company responsible for the production of their drug Lupron. In the case, Abbvie alleges that Takeda created a shortage of the drug by intermittently shutting down one of its plants. A judge found that Takeda was in breach of its contract with Abbvie and has now ordered them to pay most of the $480.6 million it sought.
Lupron may sound familiar to you because it has been at the center of the debate around whether or not children should be allowed to suppress puberty to start “transitioning” to another gender. Until recently, the drug had only been used as a treatment for prostate cancer or to help children who have “precocious puberty” a rare disorder that makes them develop much faster than their peers. This is often pointed to as proof that Lupron is safe to give to children who think they are “trans”.
Sadly, the story of the drug Lupron has become an all too familiar tale about corporate-sponsored junk-science, abject greed, doctor malfeasance, regulatory failures, and blatant disregard for human life. It would have already been added to the ever-growing list of pharmaceutical industry scandals if not for a recent resurgence into the spotlight due to its off-label use for halting puberty in gender dysphoric children.
Advocates of this “treatment” state with religious zeal that puberty can simply be paused and restarted with this miracle drug, giving the dysphoric child time to decide their identity in the future. They insist that it is a harm reduction practice because a child with GD can suffer from serious mental anguish if forced to undergo puberty in a body that doesn’t match their internal sense of gender.
This has become a pervasive view in mainstream medicine, trumpeted by activists, media, doctors, and hospital systems all over the country. What they fail to mention is that puberty blockers are just the first step in the medicalization of a child who takes them for life.
The vast majority of cases are followed by the administration of cross-sex hormones, estrogen, or testosterone depending on the sex of the child. After that, they could decide to continue on the cross-sex hormones to maintain their appearance, something they would need to do for the remainder of their life. They could also take the next step, which is surgery. In the case of a biological male, this entails the removal of the testes, and the inversion of the penis to create a “neo-vagina” and breast implants.
For biological females, this means the removal of their breasts otherwise known as a mastectomy, or in gender ideological circles the euphemism used is “top surgery”. They can also have their ovaries and uterus removed, “neo-testes” implanted, which are simply silicone balls, or even have a “neo-penis” made from the tissue usually harvested from their thigh or forearm. If you haven’t seen photos of these medical creations I encourage you to so you can get a sense of just how grotesque these procedures can be. Here is a photo demonstrating how an erectile implant works; there is a pump inside the scrotal sack that provides an erection, and you can also see the “testicular prosthesis”.
All of these radical steps come with radical risks including strokes, blood clots, and cardiovascular events, not to mention the reoccurrence of serious infections. In the case of a “neo-vagina”, the owner needs to insert a dilator into it almost daily to ensure the open wound doesn’t close up. Again, something they will need to do for the rest of their life.
Now that you have an idea of what implications are involved for children put on puberty blockers, let's take a look at how they are portrayed to the general public and specifically look at the most common drug used for it, Lupron.
Until it was recently scrubbed, here is what Boston Children’s Hospital said about blocking puberty on its website. Lucky for us, the Wayback Machine has preserved this piece of evidence:
“Children’s offers reversible medical intervention to a select group of at-risk transgender patients in order to suppress their production of estrogen or testosterone, but only after these patients have entered puberty. This reversible treatment gives patients time to reach an age when they can decide, with their families, whether to begin cross-sex hormone therapy.”
This is a truly astounding claim made by a hospital that in my opinion, should open them up to lawsuits for providing medical misinformation. That is if we lived in a world that actually cared about the health of its children. Perhaps this is why they scrubbed it from their website, something many hospitals have been doing after being exposed on social media for their unethical practices around transgenderism.
Another true believer is Dr. Michelle Forcier. If you have seen the documentary “What Is A Woman?” you will remember her as the purple-haired woman who spoke about gender ideology with religious fervor, a feature of this movement you will easily recognize if you’ve been on Twitter for the last few years.
Dr. Forcier states: “Puberty blockers are completely reversible, allowing children to return and develop in the puberty of the natal gender without known adverse sequelae.”
These are just two examples that can readily be found online, that are being parroted almost word for word by the “experts” that are trotted out to convince the public this is safe and normal. The only problem with these statements is that the original manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, said the following on the package insert. This is from 2013, courtesy of the wonderful Wayback Machine yet again:
As you can see they clearly state: “Studies have not been completed in children to determine the full reversibility of fertility suppression”.
By the way, those studies have still not been completed so anyone who claims it is fully reversible is repeating a lie. Medical professionals as well as talking heads on television should be held accountable for doing so.
Lupron has been on the market since 1989, initially approved by the FDA for the treatment of prostate cancer. It halts the production of hormones in the body which is thought to be a factor in exacerbating conditions like prostate and excessive uterine growth in the case of endometriosis, another condition it has been used to treat.
The drug is the result of a partnership between Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Pharmaceuticals (otherwise called TAP, short for Takeda Abbott Pharmaceuticals). In May of 2008, this partnership was ended by Abbot who took over the patents and rebranded to Abbvie Pharmaceuticals. Abbvie has grown to become the 5th largest pharmaceutical company in the world with revenues eclipsing $45 Billion per year, mainly due to its blockbuster drug Humira which is used to treat inflammatory autoimmune diseases.
Lupron has also been approved for use in children with precocious puberty, a condition that causes a child to start puberty years before they normally would. It is a rare condition that usually occurs in toddlers, preschool, and kindergarten-age girls, where they develop breasts and unexpected body hair. This is often caused by a tumor acting on the pituitary gland, making it produce too much estrogen too early.
It is this use that is frequently referenced as the pre-textual reasoning for off-label use in kids experiencing GD. When reviewing the history of this drug after learning it is being given to kids as young as 8 or 9 years old, I was shocked to find that no one was discussing its scandalous past. A past that should have immediately precluded it from being given to children for GD, but the greed of the pharmaceutical and medical industry knows no bounds.
The list of side effects and adverse events this drug has on full-grown adults is shocking, even more so when you consider that it is being given to kids who are experiencing mental confusion around their identity. It’s a scandal that needs to be exposed because this type of “treatment” is rapidly becoming institutionalized by the United States Government, medical associations like the Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, insurance companies, and even school curricula across the country.
All of this with no scientific evidence proving it is safe to be used in this manner, in fact precisely the opposite, but that hasn’t stopped them from endorsing it. In 2020 alone, Lupron brought in $752 Million for Abbvie according to their investor report, a slight decrease from 2018 and 2019 where they earned $867 Million and $902 Million respectively. The decrease in 2020 has been attributed to the shortage caused by Takeda Pharmaceuticals in the aforementioned lawsuit.
Lupron isn’t cheap and costs around $2000 more per month if prescribed as “Lupron Depot Ped”, meaning for kids. Dr. Norman Spack confirmed this in a paper entitled “Insurance Coverage of Puberty Blocker Therapies for Transgender Youth” which appeared in Pediatric Perspectives: Lupron-Depot (Ped). 3-month shots cost $6000, whereas the adult version costs $4000.
Another fact that is conveniently ignored by ideologues is that Lupron is categorized by the FDA as a hazardous, “pregnancy x drug”, meaning it should be avoided at all costs by women who are or may become pregnant. Despite this categorization, Lupron is still prescribed to women in vitro fertilization, a scandal in itself. It has also been used, sometimes by court order, to chemically castrate sex offenders because it is well-known that it suppresses sexual desire and causes erectile function.
Lupron acts upon the pituitary gland, the body's “master gland” that regulates almost all physiological processes in the human body, including the immune system and autonomic neural functioning. In women, it over-stimulates the ovaries, which can lead to ovarian cysts and bring on a kind of artificial menopause creating symptoms such as hot flashes, intense sweating, and the cessation of menstruation.
This eventually leads to the user being chemically castrated for life, unable to bear children or produce the sperm needed to procreate. Some other side effects that have been shown include joint and bone pain, anxiety, depression, memory loss, irritability, fibromyalgia, pituitary adenomas (tumors), and even apoplexy.
In minors, it has been shown to have impacts on the thyroid and considerable loss of bone density can occur. This bone density problem isn’t just limited to minors. In a 2005 study that was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, it was found that men who were taking the drug for prostate cancer were at risk for a “significantly increased” risk of bone fracture.
“In men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, GnRH agonists significantly increased fracture risk. The rate of any clinical fracture was 7.88 per 100 person-years at risk in men receiving a GnRH agonist compared with 6.51 per 100 person-years in matched controls.”
One of the most egregious aspects of this story is the fact that everyone who advocates for the use of this drug universally fails to mention that the manufacturers Abbot and TAP were subject to the biggest fine in the history of the Justice Department at the time, a whopping $875 million.
This was to settle civil and criminal charges in connection with its fraudulent drug pricing and marketing conduct concerning Lupron. Six TAP managers and one physician were indicted for paying kickbacks to doctors and conspiracy to defraud Medicare programs. Four other physicians pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud.
Prosecutors said the Lupron sales team rewarded doctors prescribing the drug for prostate cancer with ski trips, golf outings, and bribes, including a vacation referred to as the “Excalibur”. The Excalibur party was awarded annually to the top 30% of the sales force. At times in the 1990s, the annual budget for the Excalibur party exceeded $4,000,000, an astounding figure that if adjusted for today is the equivalent to $9.3 million for a party. In one court document, one gynecologist said a salesperson told him he “could earn $100,000 annually” by treating the women in his practice with Lupron.
There is an entire website called Lupron Victims Hub that goes into great detail about the medical problems of people who have taken this drug. There are thousands of horrific stories and many resources about its troubled past available.
Every step of the way Lupron has been shrouded in controversy, from the shady marketing tactics to the obfuscation of the terrible side effects resulting in thousands of men and women with debilitating injuries. An article in Stat News reported:
“The FDA approval documents for pediatric Lupron say Central Precocious Puberty affects an estimated 2,000 US children each year, something considered an “orphan disease” because of its rarity. Yet doctors wrote 24,000 prescriptions for the medication in 2015, at an average cost of $8,300 for a 3-month long-acting prescription of the drug, according to IMS Health, a medical research firm.”
If you have been following the faux outrage around the use of off-label pharmaceuticals to treat COVID, reading this is especially rich. Authorities, doctors, and the media have no problem with promoting Lupron’s off-label use in children, but prescribing ivermectin can be denied by your doctor. Even if they do prescribe it for you, your pharmacist can outright deny it.
Despite that fact, Abbvie was forced to pay a record fine that ended up being only a fraction of the profits generated. To this day, Abbvie the current manufacturer, the FDA, the media, and all of the doctor activists see no ethical or moral problems with giving this dangerous drug to children who are the most vulnerable among us. I have seen no mention of Lupron’s troubled past in any articles written in mainstream news, an oversight that reveals the extent to which the media has been captured by the pharmaceutical industry and its interests.
If history teaches us anything, it’s that the medical industrial complex’s voracious appetite for easy profits knows no bounds, and it has shown a willingness to sacrifice a generation of children, setting them up to be at risk of sterilization, osteoporosis, and a host of life-long debilitating conditions that will require even more pharmaceutical interventions.
All of this at the altar of transgenderism, ethics, or morals be damned.
Very informative article, thank you! I would like to learn even more, and also to have some of the main issues distilled down to a list of a few hard facts that can be used to counter the usual denials that proponents of child transing always assert as established truth.
Thank you. Learned a lot