Last week, the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement announcing that it had issued Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to two pharmaceutical companies, AbbVie Inc. and Endo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

The demands are part of an investigation to “determine whether these manufacturers of puberty-blocking drugs deceptively advertised and promoted hormone blockers for unapproved uses without disclosing the potential risks to children and their parents.”

“Companies should never promote or supply puberty blockers for uses that are not intended or approved,” Paxton said. “I will not allow Big Pharma to misleadingly promote these drugs that may pose a high risk of serious physical and psychological damage to Texas children who cannot yet fathom or consent to the potential long-term effects of such use.”

The attorney general’s office contends that the medications at issue — Supprelin LA and Lupron Depot — have approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat children with Central Precocious Puberty, a condition in which puberty comes early for a child. While Lupron has also “been prescribed for palliative treatment of prostate cancer,” neither drug has been approved as a treatment for gender dysphoria by the FDA.

In a fallen world this is exactly what we would expect to see, a large opportunity to make “big bucks” has opened up for these two pharmaceutical companies and they have grabbed at it regardless of the impact the use of their drugs may have on the future physical and psychological health of the young children that ingest them.

The conservative American College of Pediatricians has warned that the use of puberty-blocking drugs for gender identity purposes on children can cause infertility. Critics claim providing such drugs to children struggling with their gender identity would sterilize otherwise physically healthy children.

“There is not a single long-term study to demonstrate the safety or efficacy of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for transgender-believing youth. This means that youth transition is experimental, and therefore, parents cannot provide informed consent, nor can minors provide assent for these interventions. Moreover, the best long-term evidence we have among adults shows that medical intervention fails to reduce suicide.”

The debate about puberty blockers has received increased attention in recent years, particularly after “60 Minutes” aired a segment featuring testimony from “detransitioners,” those who began to transition from one gender to the other only to regret doing so later.

The young adults on the panel interviewed by CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl agreed that they were rushed into “hormones and surgery” without completely understanding the long-term impacts of taking that course of action.

In the USA and many of the developed countries, we now have a medical establishment for whom ethics is little more than a laid-back, indifferent acceptance of technological possibilities enabled by a political class that has jettisoned God and His morality, these groups are shaping pediatric care. And the cost will be catastrophically high.