New data from the Food and Drug Administration has revealed a drug used to block puberty in gender-confused kids has been linked to more than 6,300 adult deaths.
The drug, Lupron, is routinely used to treat prostate cancer in men and endometriosis in women. Adverse complications from the medication include malignant neoplasms, breast disorders, and psychiatric and nervous disorders, according to The Christian Post.
In the time data was gathered on the drug — between 2012 and June 30 of this year — the FDA documented more than 40,764 adverse reactions suffered by patients who used Lupron, which has been linked to brittle bones, joint issues, blood clots and other cardiovascular complications.
More than 25,500 of the complications from the medication were considered “serious.” Additionally, the drug was tied to 6,370 deaths.
Lupron is being used for off-label purposes when prescribed to gender-confused children with the goal of halting the natural process of puberty. While the drug does not have FDA approval for use in treating gender dysphoria, it is clinically authorized to treat precocious puberty, a condition in which puberty begins at an abnormally early age.
This is not the first time issues with Lupron have been documented, though. In December 2018, a group of pediatric endocrinologists voiced their concerns to The Christian Post regarding the fact the drug has never been OK’d by the FDA for use on gender dysphoric children.
In 2017, Stat, a health-related news outlet, ran a story about the dangers of Lupron:
Women who used Lupron a decade or more ago to delay puberty or grow taller described the short-term side effects listed on the pediatric label: pain at the injection site, mood swings, and headaches. Yet they also described conditions that usually affect people much later in life. A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25-year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26-year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin, like Derricott, has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease.
And earlier this month, Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said he is concerned about the long-term implications of allowing children to undergo hormonal therapies for gender dysphoria.
Doctors, he said, “are doing what amounts to an experiment on these young people without telling them it’s an experiment,” adding, “You need evidence for that, and this is a very serious treatment. It is comparable to doing frontal lobotomies.”
McHugh also explained he’s worried about the fact many of these kids being medically treated for dysphoria could end up unable to have children of their own as a result of treatments they received as minors. Furthermore, they will be in the care of medical doctors “for the rest of their lives.”
“Many of them are going to be sterilized and not able to have their own children,” McHugh said, “and many will regret this.”
“Can you imagine having a life where you need to seek doctors all the time, for everything, just to live?” he added. “Getting your hormones checked, getting everything checked. That is something doctors should like to spare people of.”