Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that he was opening an investigation into two pharmaceutical companies for promoting puberty-blocking drugs to minors for gender transitions.
The investigation will look at whether or not Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc. have violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by advertising and providing puberty-blocking drugs to underage children for the purposes of gender transitions, a use that does not have FDA approval.
The two companies provide puberty-blocking drugs that are approved for use in children with precocious puberty, a condition in which a child starts exhibiting signs of puberty prematurely.
Puberty-blocking drugs have increasingly been used in children who claim a different gender identity than their biological sex. The practice has been criticized as a harmful and irreversible treatment.
But the drug companies, Paxton’s office said in a press release, are promoting puberty-blocking drugs to parents and children as a treatment for gender dysphoria “without disclosing the potential risks.”
“The manufacture, sale, prescription, and use of puberty blockers on young teens and minors is dangerous and reckless,” Paxton said in the press release. “These drugs were approved for very different purposes and can have detrimental and even irreversible side effects. I will not allow pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of Texas children.”
