TEXAS, USA — Texas Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton is investigating two pharmaceutical firms — Endo Prescribed drugs and AbbVie Inc. — for allegedly promoting puberty blockers to youngsters and their dad and mom to deal with gender dysphoria relatively than the opposite medical circumstances they’re authorised to deal with.

Paxton opened the investigation in December and filed civil investigative calls for with the 2 firms on Thursday.

That is the most recent transfer in an ongoing effort by Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott to restrict entry to gender-affirming medical look after transgender teenagers in Texas.

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Gender-affirming care is a remedy mannequin to handle gender dysphoria, the misery an individual feels when their gender identification doesn’t match the intercourse they had been assigned at start. Younger folks usually deal with social transition — dressing a sure method or utilizing totally different pronouns — however will be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone remedy in session with a health care provider.

What’s gender-affirming medical look after transgender youngsters? Right here’s what you’ll want to know.

Final month, Paxton issued a nonbinding authorized opinion that equated gender-affirming medical care, together with totally reversible puberty blockers, with baby abuse. Abbott then directed the state’s baby welfare company to research dad and mom who present these medical interventions to their youngsters.

Not less than 9 households are beneath investigation. A state court docket briefly suspended the investigations, a choice that was upheld earlier this week by an appeals court docket. Paxton has requested the Texas Supreme Courtroom to overturn that injunction and permit the investigations to proceed.

In December, Paxton introduced investigations beneath the Texas Misleading Commerce Practices Act into Endo Prescribed drugs and AbbVie Inc., the 2 firms that promote puberty blockers. He claimed in a press launch that the medicine are authorised to deal with precocious puberty and types of prostate most cancers however had been being marketed and prescribed off-label to deal with gender dysphoria.

“These medicine had been authorised for very totally different functions and might have detrimental and even irreversible uncomfortable side effects,” Paxton stated. “I cannot enable pharmaceutical firms to benefit from Texas youngsters.”

On Thursday, Paxton issued letters to the businesses, demanding sure paperwork associated to the sale and commercial of the medicine.

In a press release, a spokesperson for Endo stated the corporate doesn’t promote its medicines for off-label makes use of and is cooperating with the investigation. AbbVie didn’t instantly reply to remark.

Entry to gender-affirming care has narrowed considerably because the governor’s directive final month. A number of main well being care suppliers have stopped offering hormone remedy within the final month, together with Texas Kids’s Hospital in Houston, the most important pediatric hospital within the nation.

Texas Kids’s Hospital pauses gender-affirming companies as a result of new directive which targets trans youth

In November, the state’s largest gender-affirming well being care supplier, GENECIS, stopped accepting new sufferers for hormone remedy beneath strain from Texas Republicans.

This story comes from our KHOU 11 Information companions at The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media group that informs Texans – and engages with them – about public coverage, politics, authorities, and statewide points.