Drugs Used as Puberty Blockers in Children Can Cause Serious Effects, FDA Report Finds
A recent FDA report has shown that drugs used as puberty blockers, such as Lupron, have caused serious negative long-term effects in adults, including death.
According to the Christian Post, between 2004 and June 30 of this year, over 40,764 adverse reactions were recorded by patients who took Lupron and Triptorelin, including over 6,000 deaths associated with the drugs.
Though created to treat prostate cancer in men and endometriosis in women, doctors are prescribing the drugs for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria to interrupt hormone levels while children decide their gender.
But reports have revealed destructive long-term effects for adults who took the drug as a child. Sharissa Derricott, who was prescribed Lupron as a young girl to help her grow taller, believes it has seriously hindered her life.
“It just feels like I’m being punished for basically being experimented on when I was a child,” she said to STAT News. “I’d hate for a child to be put on Lupron, get to my age and go through the things I have been through.”
In 2017, the FDA said it was “conducting a specific review of nervous system and psychiatric events in association with the use of GnRH agonists, [a class of drugs] including Lupron, in pediatric patients.”
Endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw has seen the dangers of using the drug for gender dysphoria.
“Gender dysphoria is not an endocrine condition, but is a psychological one and should, therefore, be treated with proper psychological care. But it becomes an endocrine condition once you start using puberty blockers and giving cross-sex hormones to kids,” he said.
Dr. Ken Sinervo told WSB-TV last year that Lupron on pediatric patients can have dire effects.
“I feel that Lupron or any of the similar types of medications should never be used in someone under the age of 21,” he said. As a gynecologist specializing in endometriosis surgeries, Sinervo said he has seen women suffering from memory loss and joint pain from the drug.
A clinical trial showed that after a year off the drug, 62% of women did not regain normal estrogen levels again.
Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Thought Catalog, this is a stock photo.
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