Puberty Blocker Manufacturer Paid Director of Mount Sinai Transgender Clinic for Consulting

The director of Mount Sinai’s Transgender Center has received compensation from a pharmaceutical company that manufactures puberty blockers.

Doctor Joshua D. Safer, the Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, has received compensation from Endo Pharmaceuticals, which produces Supprelin LA, a drug commonly used as an off-label puberty blocker.

The Center accepts children as patients, explaining that their “medicine and pediatric endocrinology specialists provide gender-affirming medical care” for children and adolescents. 

In 2018, the most recent year for which public records data is available, Safer received $3,266 from Endo Pharmaceuticals, including $2,347 for consulting. This consulting was directly linked to Supprelin LA. Mount Sinai’s Adolescent Health Center offers puberty-blocking prescriptions to children.

Safer has been a vocal advocate for the use of puberty blockers on children who experience gender dysphoria. Last year, he spoke out against bills that would prevent children from being medically assisted in sex change attempts. In an interview with NPR, Safer called puberty blockers “the conservative go-to medication for kids.”

Safer has also claimed that using puberty blockers on children is “incredibly safe.” Lupron, a puberty-blocking drug produced by AbbVie, has been used to chemically castrate sex offenders. The FDA recently warned that Supprelin LA may carry the risk of causing brain swelling and permanent vision loss. 

A ProPublica report discovered that doctors prescribe a drug more frequently when they have received payments from pharmaceutical companies, particularly when those payments are related to the specific drug.

“Doctors who receive money from drugmakers related to a specific drug prescribe that drug more heavily than doctors without such financial ties.”

The report specifically found that “On average, across all drugs, providers who received payments specifically tied to a drug prescribed it 58% more than providers who did not receive payments.”

Safer is just one of many doctors with a leadership role in a transgender clinic that has received compensation from a company that manufactures puberty blockers. 

Breitbart News previously reported that Stephen Rosenthal, the founder and director of the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Gender Center, received over $16,000 from Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie, which produces a puberty blocker called Lupron. The payments were for consulting with the companies on their puberty-blocking drugs.

Breitbart News also revealed that Endo Pharmaceuticals also gave financial compensation to Maja Marinkovic in payments related to Supprelin LA. Marinkovic is the co-director of the Center for Gender-Affirming Care at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, which also offers puberty blockers.

Jeremi Carswell, the director of the Gender Multispeciality Service at the Boston Children’s Hospital, has also received compensation from the puberty blocker manufacturer, Breitbart News discovered. 

Both Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie are currently under investigation by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The two companies allegedly promoted and advertised puberty blockers “for unapproved uses without disclosing the potential risks associated with these drugs to children and their parents.”

Mount Sinai Hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com.