Although vosoritide may help to rid children with achondroplasia of future health problems, some have deemed it controversial since it would “fix” their short stature.

“People like me are endangered and now they want to make me extinct,” said Leah Smith, a spokeswoman for Little People of America, told the Guardian.

“If I could take a drug to get rid of my spinal stenosis [when the spinal column narrows and starts to compress the spinal cord], I would take it,” disability lecturer Erin Pritchard, who has achondroplasia, told the Guardian. “But to get rid of my identity as a person with dwarfism, to make me grow so that I fit in society and I don’t get stared at, pointed out, laughed at, photographed, I think that’s where it gets problematic, because I should not have to change to fit in with a prejudiced society.”

Defendants argue that the drug does not rid takers of their achondroplasia, but it simply makes it easier to physically function.