Stunner: Marc Garnick, one of the principal investigators into the drug Lupron when it was tested and approved by the FDA, responded to the New York Times’ story on the potential dangers of the medical treatment of gender dysphoria. I wrote about the story in a VIP column a couple of weeks ago.

The article actually raised the question about the safety of “gender affirming care,” and called into question the claims about how safe and effective the treatments being provided to children really are. It was the first MSM story that opened up the path to mainstream criticism of “gender affirming care.” Reuters has followed suit, as John wrote about.

Gender bender doctors like to claim that puberty blockers, for instance, are completely safe and their effects are totally reversible. The evidence does not back this up, and now we have one of doctors involved in the initial investigations into the effects of the drug Lupron weighing in on the dangers of the drug.

Lupron was not invented to treat gender issues at all. It was developed as a drug to help treat prostate cancer, for which it is still used. Garnick is a prominent urologist whose work on prostate cancer is well regarded. Dr. Garnick is the Gorman Brothers Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he also directs the hospital’s role as a tertiary cancer center for 7 affiliated community cancer centers.

In other words, he is a big deal, and given his experience with Lupron from its development he knows the drug perhaps better than anyone.

Here is what he had to say to the Times–which apparently did not interview him for the story, presumably because his work has to do with cancer and not gender:

To the Editor:

The scholarly and well-researched article raises significant safety issues about using puberty blockers in prepubescent and pubescent children as part of gender transitioning.

As one of three academic principal clinical investigators of studies that led to the initial F.D.A. approval of Lupron for the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer — and having studied this class of drugs, which includes puberty blockers, for more than four decades — I can say that physicians are still learning and continue to be concerned about the safety of these agents in adults.

Woefully little safety data are available for the likely more vulnerable younger population. Bone loss in adult men who have been on these agents is significant, and a leading cause of morbidity with long-term administration.

Other safety issues include cognitive, metabolic and cardiovascular effects, still under intense investigation. The prudent and ethical use of such agents in the younger population should demand that every pubertal or pre-pubertal child be part of rigorous clinical research studies that evaluate both the short-term and longer-term effects of these agents to better define the true risks and benefits rather than relying on anecdotal information.

Marc B. Garnick
Boston
The writer is a professor at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston.

Basically he destroys the “completely safe and reversible” narrative in four paragraphs.

These drugs are in fact neither safe nor reversible, even in adults. The effects on children are completely unknown because they really have not been studied at all.

Of course opponents of so-called “gender-affirming care” have been screaming all this from the rooftops for several years, but until recently there has been absolutely no daylight between the gender-benders and the media establishment. No daylight at all.

With Reuters and the New York Times opening up a bit of breathing room for critics perhaps we will make some progress on the issue. We will still be called haters, be slandered, canceled and reviled. But perhaps we may actually save some children from a terrible mistake from which they will never recover.

It is infuriating that it takes an MSM seal of approval to speak the truth, but obviously it does. Dr Garnick knew what he was saying all along, but failed to join the fight against the sterilization and mutilation of children.

That is disappointing, but not surprising. Going against the approved Narrative™ is fatal to one’s career and standing in society. Until the mavens at the Times allow you to utter a bit of dissent, it is difficult to do so.

We can hope others will follow Dr Garnick’s lead, and we must refrain for a while from doing what comes naturally: deride them for cowardice.

Cowards they were, but they can be allies in this fight right here and right now. That matters more than a feeling of moral vindication.

I wish I could do a happy dance over this small victory, but there is too much work to be done fighting the ghouls mutilating children.

UPDATE: More evidence that the media and gender doctors did or should have known that these drugs are very dangerous. This time from medical journal STAT’s news service:

For years, Sharissa Derricott, 30, had no idea why her body seemed to be failing. At 21, a surgeon replaced her deteriorated jaw joint. She’s been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Her teeth are shedding enamel and cracking.

None of it made sense to her until she discovered a community of women online who describe similar symptoms and have one thing in common: All had taken a drug called Lupron.

Thousands of parents chose to inject their daughters with the drug, which was approved to shut down puberty in young girls but also is commonly used off-label to help short kids grow taller.

The drug’s pediatric version comes with few warnings about long-term side effects. It is also used in adults to fight prostate cancer or relieve uterine pain and the Food and Drug Administration has warnings on the drug’s adult labels about a variety of side effects.

More than 10,000 adverse event reports filed with the FDA reflect the experiences of women who’ve taken Lupron. The reports describe everything from brittle bones to faulty joints.

The current crop of doctors and counselors pushing hormones and surgeries are nothing more than frauds who are cashing in on a craze. They have ample evidence to know that they are lying when they say their treatments are safe, effective, and reversible. Yet they say it anyway.

They should be in jail for what they are doing, not celebrated as courageous heroes.