This is in reply to a post from more than a year ago, so it's very possible other people have commented on this, and I apologize if this is merely the latest in a line of identical statements. Nonetheless, I feel compelled, as someone who watched this happen, to say:
We know.
In 2001, Abbot and Takeda - then the makers of Lupron, operating together as TAP Pharmaceutical Products - were forced to pay
$875,000,000 in fines relating to their unethical practices in urging Doctors to dispense samples of Lupron, and to then fraudulently claim hundreds in government reimbursement for
each dose. The depths to which Abbot, in particular, is willing to sink in pursuit of profit is important to note.
Moving forward, Lupron's reputation did not improve. From 2007 to 2017, an article much like this one could be found once per quarter or so in a major magazine. I recall TIME running several pieces like this one (shocking, isn't it?) and I encourage everyone to read it:
A number of women attribute their chronic health problems — including brittle bones and faulty joints — to use of Lupron while they were children.
www.statnews.com
There was serious talk of restricting all off-label uses of Lupron. It is a chemotherapeutic agent, and it is an important one for treatment for a few types of cancers, but it should
never be given to children. There were several major lawsuits in the works,.
And, then, suddenly, when things seem most grim for the future of "puberty blockers,"
millions begin to pour into "trans rights" organizations. Gender dysmorphic disorder is banished as a mental illness, and becomes a strictly physical condition that insurers are required to cover.
And Lupron, and other drugs of its kind, shift from black sheep that could well be restricted in ways that few drugs have ever been, to being among the more profitable drugs on the market. One year of Lupron is more than $20,000, and there is no generic. A child prescribed it as a "puberty blocker" for the purpose of transition can be expected to be on a drug like Lupron for as long as a decade. Remember the article - those were the consequences of only a few years, not a
decade.
There is, obviously, a cultural element to the movement. There are, obviously, to put it bluntly, a lot of degenerates involved. (I have known, and I have nothing but sympathy for, HSTS patients. While I believe their condition to be rooted primarily in psychology and an intense self-hate resulting from being gay, they do, indeed, suffer from it. By contrast, I have known only a few AGPs who were other than walking masses of paraphilias and malignant narcissism.) It has, tragically, become a point of virtue to support.
But what drives it is very simple. It is what drove Thalidomide; it is what drove desPLEX; it is what drove Meridia and Fen-Phen. It is what drove every drug that was known by its manufacturer to have side-effects that outweigh any potential benefits a thousand times over:
The avarice of companies willing to destroy an unlimited number of lives across multiple generations in service to their bottom line.
If you find any of this difficult to believe, I urge you to read up on desPLEX. It was prescribed to millions of women over a period of decades to prevent complications with pregnancy, chief among them being spontaneous miscarriage. The company knew, in the 1950s, that it induced miscarriage and caused major reproductive malformities and carcinomas. It was not withdrawal as a treatment approved for pregnant women in America until
1971. It continued to be sold in other countries until
1985. The FDA of today is, horrifying as it is to admit it, even
less inquisitive and
more corrupt than it was when desPLEX was available.
* TAP fined:
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/04/...-to-pay-875-million-to-settle-fraud-case.html
* Consequences of Lupron:
https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/
* desPLEX:
https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/the-des-story-long-term-consequences-of-prenatal-exposure/
TL;DR: We know exactly what the consequences of "puberty blockers" are. We have known for 20 years. But, because they are profitable, they are allowed to be prescribed at ever-increasing levels, which is perhaps the greatest violation of biomedical ethics in my entire life.