Follow the money - who is funding the US transborg?

[OrchidInTheSun]

I haven't read all this yet but it looks very interesting, particularly in light of some of the conversations being had on the JB thread.

medium.com/@sue.donym1984/inauthentic-selves-the-modern-lgbtq-movement-is-run-by-philanthropic-astroturf-and-based-on-junk-d08eb6aa1a4b

There's no money to be made from lesbians or gay men. I honestly believe that's why trans has gone from 0 to 11 in half as many years.

Bowl - thanks for your very clear explanation. Hope your womb-squatter decides out is better than in very soon. I really feel for you in this weather!

I've just read (OK, skimmed!) this - it's essential reading IMO.

Here's the info on the TAP / Lupron

www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2001/October/513civ.htm

An excerpt:

(1) TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. ("TAP"), a major American pharmaceutical manufacturer, has agreed to pay $875,000,000 to resolve criminal charges and civil liabilities in connection with its fraudulent drug pricing and marketing conduct with regard to Lupron, a drug sold by TAP primarily for treatment of advanced prostate cancer in men. The global agreement includes:

(a) TAP has agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy to violate the PrescriptionDrug Marketing Act and to pay a $290,000,000 criminal fine, the largest criminal fine ever in a health care fraud prosecution. The plea agreement between the United States and TAP specifically states that TAP's criminal conduct caused losses of $145,000,000.

(b) TAP has agreed to settle its federal civil False Claims Act liabilities and to pay the U.S. Government $559,483,560 for filing false and fraudulent claims with the Medicare and Medicaid programs as a result of TAP's fraudulent drug pricing schemes and sales and marketing misconduct.

(c) TAP has agreed to settle its civil liabilities to the fifty states and the District of Columbia and to pay them $25,516,440 for filing false and fraudulent claims with the states, as a result of TAP's drug pricing and marketing misconduct, and from TAP's failure to provide the state Medicaid programs TAP's best price for those drugs as required by law.

(d) TAP has agreed to comply with the terms of a sweeping corporate integrity agreement which, among other things, significantly changes the manner in which TAP supervises its marketing and sales staff, and ensures that TAP will report to the Medicare and Medicaid programs the true average sale price for drugs reimbursed by those programs.

***

They're not exactly the good guys are they?!

From the same link:

A federal grand jury returned an indictment unsealed today, charging one physician and six TAP managers with conspiracy to pay kickbacks to doctors and other customers, conspiracy to defraud the state Medicaid programs on TAP's obligation to sell products to those programs at its best price, and conspiracy to violate the Prescription Drug Marketing Act by causing free samples to be illegally billed to the Medicare program.

The indictment charges that the TAP defendants offered to give things of value, including free drugs, so-called educational grants, trips to resorts, free consulting services, medical equipment, and forgiveness of debt, to physicians and other customers to obtain their referrals of prescriptions for Lupron to Medicare program beneficiaries, in violation of the anti-kickback statute.

The indictment also charges that the TAP defendants aided and abetted, and caused the billings to hundreds of elderly Medicare program beneficiaries and to the Medicare program directly, for thousands of free samples of Lupron, used in the treatment of prostate cancer, in violation of the Prescription Drug Marketing Act

Damn, well done that researcher! But yeah, I've long suspected that after the class action lawsuit filed against the makers of Lupron they were looking for a new market where less questions would be asked, and found one in parents anxious enough about their non-conforming children to attempt to medicate them into a semblance of "straight and normal".

I applaud Medium for publishing articles from both sides of the debate. They come across as neutral to me which is not the case for most media (print most definitely)

Medium is a blog site where anyone can publish whatever they want

Excellent link...working on getting through it. Thank you!

I posted this at the end of an almost dead thread the other day--a Planned Parenthood ad for self-referral for cross sex hormones.

Here's the update: I called the other day to our local PP office. I asked if they had a practitioner who would treat gender dyphoria. Yes, they did. Did I need to have a referral from a psychiatrist or therapist or other physician? No, I did not. She said they "practice affirmative care." Then I asked about teens and children, at which point I believe she realized she had said too much and told me I'd have to make an appointment or leave my contact information.

In case this doesn't sufficiently scare you, let me recap where my state is in terms of the implications here for teens: a conversion therapy bill was passed that mandates the only approach for gender dysphoria is for providers and therapists to affirm stated gender identity. No watchful waiting. And, adolescents over the age of 14 are legally allowed to make their own decisions (with complete confidentiality from their parents) regarding mental health, sexuality, or substance use/abuse.

I'm 99% certain PP will prescribe to teens with no parental authorization. They can bill the child's insurance or will work on a sliding scale fee system. (What's a little expenditure in the red for a few years when you'll have a lifelong patient?)

Also, any more, most "providers" in the US who work for PP are what we call "mid-level practitioners," not physicians. They have much less schooling and experience, but typically have full prescribing privileges. It's scary.

Bowlofbabelfish

Totally agree with your post would have been great to have that insight when we were discussing unlicensed drugs a free weeks back.
the big pharma conspiracies hide like you say the actual grubby practic. any medic or nurse will tell you that these companies offer a lot of insensitives to use there product and I have always admired a consultant that would invite them in with there free lunches for everyone then rip there paid for study to bits. we should always try to use the best drug available but that is not always the newest or most expensive one.

GeorgeFayne

And, adolescents over the age of 14 are legally allowed to make their own decisions (with complete confidentiality from their parents) regarding mental health, sexuality, or substance use/abuse.

So they can decide for themselves whether or not to take cross-sex hormones, but presumably are not legally allowed to consume alcohol?

Insane....

By the way, Babel, excellent comments as usual! I agree completely.

Prescribing "off label" actually occurs fairly often. (Many drugs used in pediatrics are, simply because clinical trials in children can be very difficult to do.) Liability isn't necessarily greater for off label drugs if there is a well-documented or well-supported use for that drug. Here's where standard of care comes in to play, which is critical if trying to prove harm. If a physician follows the standard of care, even if the patient had a severe adverse outcome, the physician is generally protected.

Now this is ugly and sticky: the relevant governing bodies here have largely agreed that "affirmative care" is the right thing for children and teens with gender dysphoria, which may include puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones and/or surgery. The professional societies for pediatricians and endocrinologists and psychiatrists have collectively agreed with WPATH that treatment should not be withheld from children, and have published position statements for providers to reference. In other words, this is now the standard of care.

Fast forward ten years from now. Will there be lawsuits? Absolutely. Will the prescribing physicians be defensible? Legally, yes. They can cite the current standard of care and deflect much of the personal responsibility. I'm not saying I agree with this or support this, but very few physicians will be held individually accountable for these practices.

Another thing mentioned in that article is the determined effort to get the DSM definitions changed. The DSM is the American ‘diagnostic standard’ - so all psychiatric disorders are listed there with criteria. ICD-11 is the version this side of the pond and there has been a huge push to get that changed too.

So the standard of care is being altered here as well. The very definition of what you’re treating and who you treat for it has been changed.

(This to me exposes a huge problem with a lot of psychiatry - it’s the only thing we use subjective diagnosis for and treat medically but that’s a whole other thread and argument for another day and I’m still not entirely sure what my position is in it despite a lot of thought.)

But anyway, the take home from this is that there are lobby groups capable of changing medical definitions of illness. If that doesn’t worry you, it should.

In the USA, if the standard of care is x and prescribers stick to it then they are protected to a degree. In the UK, we have a single payer system - guess who the liability will fall on? Yup - the NHS.

So where from here? This is one reason why I believe it’s vital to keep pushing the scientific and medical side of this. Without opposition that standard of care shifts. With opposition and evidence you have the slightest glimmer of hope that the SOC is something that’s not agreed on by all parties.

Hence my endless, pedantic banging on about ‘science and why it is inportant’ And valuable contributions from medics like george

We have seen cases like this in the past - damaging trends in medicine that are more based on fad than fact. The huge financial/ideological backing for this is fairly new - and I will keep opposing it.

I'm half way through this article and overwhelmed by the size of the machine.
Essential reading.

Still reading, a very long read indeed.
I was aware of Pritzker and a few others, and some of the funding pools.

According to Funders for LGBTQ Issues (FFLI), funding specifically earmarked for transgender causes began rapidly increasing in 2012; by 2016 it outstripped the funding for gay, lesbian and bisexual combined (a total of $13.2m), at a cool $22 million total in funding, specifically earmarked for transgender causes.

Yup. :(

What's the alternative to Lupron that's often used in the UK?

Is it made by Tap also, does anyone know?

Triptorelin.

Not sure who makes it, should be google able

Still reading...my children are making this challenging for me. :)

I've been thinking today about how many times the medical community has been wrong about various things. Like completely missed the mark. (I knew we've talked on here about past treatments for mental health.) Remember the whole low fat craze of the 90's? Where sugar was fine, but God forbid you let a gram of saturated fat in your diet? That turned out well..

TRAs love to cite that they have the backing of physicians and medical organizations. That honestly means nothing to me. The fallibility of medicine remains. Also, though, the financial piece cannot be ignored.

Here's a good example of policy/clinical recommendations being swayed by finances: here in the US, circumcision remains a fairly common practice. Many times, it's performed by pediatricians. The AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) came out with a position statement that essentially said there was no medical benefit to routine neonatal circumcision. Over time, insurance companies and state insurance programs (like Medicaid, which covers low-income children) stopped paying for the procedure. Predictably, circumcision rates dropped. Pediatricians saw a clear loss in revenue.

Interestingly, the AAP reconvened their committee on the subject and reviewed the literature. Fascinating, isn't it, that this time they found the potential for medical benefit and justified the procedure?

Which begs the question: who are the real shareholders here?

I'm reading this too. It's mindboggling.

On the subject of medical mistakes, where to begin?

Thalidomide
Electric shock treatment for depression
Lobotomy for assorted psychiatric problems

I am a layperson but for various reasons I don't have a huge amount of confidence in psychiatry/psychology compared with other branches of medicine. It's a long, long way behind other disciplines in the standard of diagnosis and treatment. Medicalising perfectly normal features of personality and reactions to life events has not done us any favours at all.

On which note, here's another good article, much shorter than the Medium one: areomagazine.com/2018/07/08/no-you-dont-have-a-disorder-you-have-feelings/

Thanks Bowlofbabelfish.

According to Wikipedia:

"Triptorelin is marketed under the brand names Decapeptyl ( Ipsen ) and Diphereline and Gonapeptyl ( Ferring Pharmaceuticals ). In the United States, it is sold by Watson Pharmaceuticals as Trelstar. In Iran Triptorelin is marketed under the brand name Variopeptyl."

I've no idea if Ipsen, Ferring Pharmaceuticals or Watson Pharmaceuticals have any relationship with TAP.

Does anyone know?

I posted these on a different thread - hadn't realised this one was going! Oops!

The Federalist article raises a slight alarm for me as the clinic where the first US womb transplant took place and centre where the resulting child was born are both linked to Pritzker... implying there is perhaps an agenda to attempt this sort of surgery for transgender women.

D0do

Excellent link! Thank you for sharing. That was so insightful and captured many of my frustrations with the modern mental health narrative.

To quote:
"Those of us in the mental health profession ought to be in the business of helping people to see themselves as having the potential to be well and whole. We should help them understand themselves as resilient, rather than infirm and frail. We ought to help people imagine larger, richer, more complex stories for themselves, rather than simplistic narratives of illness and victimhood."

May 2018 Assoc. Professor Michael Biggs (Oxford Sociology) article:
'The Open Society Foundations & the transgender movement'
(extract)
"The transgender movement has transformed cultural norms and social institutions at breathtaking speed. Most of us, becoming acquainted with the trans issue for the first time, are astonished to discover the extent of the gender revolution. The movement has accomplished in a few years what the movements for women’s and for gay and lesbian rights took many decades to achieve.

Part of the explanation is the amount of money behind transgenderism. The Gender Industrial Complex, as we may call it, has many components. Lucrative sponsorship comes from pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. Charities originally established to fight for homosexual rights (like Human Rights Campaign in the United States and Stonewall in Britain) wield large budgets. Last but not least, three American billionaires have bankrolled the transgender movement on a global scale: Jennifer Pritzker, whose activities were detailed in another blogpost, Jon Stryker, and George Soros.

This blogpost focuses on the Open Society Foundations (OSF), funded by Soros. This is not easy to discuss because he is vilified by right-wingers, whose criticism sometimes degenerates into anti-semitism (Williamson 2018). Therefore those of us who are liberal or progressive tend to react instinctively by dismissing any scrutiny of Soros out of hand. This is unjustified, as I will show by providing some facts about how OSF has funded the transgender movement.

OSF fully supports the objectives of transgender activists. Self-identification is “an essential legal right for trans people” (OSF 2014a). In other words, biological sex must be superseded by subjective gender identity, to include options “outside the binary categories of male and female” (OSF 2014b). Identity should not be “governed by age restrictions” (OSF 2014b). Therefore OSF funds “trans-led or LGBT organizations that promote progressive, rights-based processes for legal gender recognition” (OSF 2014a). It also advocates access to “hormonal therapy, counseling, and gender-affirming surgeries” on demand (OSF 2014a). This includes puberty blockers for youth (OSF 2013).

How much has OSF spent to promote the transgender movement? In 2011–13, it spent $3.19 million, which made it the top funder, followed by Stryker’s Arcus Foundation and Pritzker’s Tawani Foundation (Funders for LBTQ Issues 2015). OSF’s current database includes grants worth $3.07 million for 2016–17 (searching for keywords “trans” and “transgender”). The largest recipients in this current tranche are the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association ($642,000), Global Action for Trans Equality ($500,000), and Transgender Europe ($500,000)." (continues)

thread with link to article:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3260270-Michael-Biggs-Oxford-Sociology-dept-The-Open-Society-Foundations-the-transgender-movement-incl-comparison-with-funding-for-women

I wouldn't spit on Soros if he was on fire.

I haven't managed to get through all of the article yet, but wanted to add observations on the financial inducement to promote this from the point of view of investors and investment houses (I used to work in the financial industry).

As Bowl mentioned pharma companies have a huge inducement to extend patents on products. The R&D cycle is expensive, lengthy and can crash at the final stage. Companies were always hunting for a "wonder" drug and they often targeted the same market - some sectors are clearly much more profitable than others (in the 90s, there were a few ulcer wonder drugs, like losec which catapulted Astra into the big league). And, of course, as investors we encouraged them. R&D investment is naturally necessary because you need the next product once you face the patent cliff-edge, but too much and you squeeze the profits that investors are after. You also need to find the right market - i.e. identify an area with maximum growth potential and fewer competitors. Alternative strategies were to find an improved version of an existing drug (but it had to be much better as the competition from generic versions of your old drug would be much cheaper) or to find a new indicator for an existing drug and extend the patent. For investors, pharma companies with a star drug are a fabulous prospect. But those facing patent expiry experience a dramatic earnings loss and a tumble in the share price.

I don't really like conspiracy theories about pharma, but I'd be naive if I didn't think that this could be a perfect storm. You have the drugs which can be used for new applications, the market which seems to be rapidly expanding (and patients who will be dependant on products possibly from early teens for life) and, as a new area, there are so many potential opportunities for other drugs to be sold of the back of any resultant complications or new developments. The figures donated seem large (and obvious far in excess of those to the L&G), but in terms of risk / reward, they seem small for someone set to make money from the accrual in share value.

I have to say I don’t believe many pharma conspiracies either - what I DO believe is that people will take any opportunity to make money and have and will continue to engage in dubious marketing practices.
I don’t think pharma is behind all this but I do think they will happily profit wherever they can. As they always have. The rules keep getting tightened and are much more strict than they were even ten years ago, which is a good thing, but there are still loopholes.

For people like Pritzker - there’s obviously a meeting of massive wealth and a need for validation. The concentration of such huge wealth in single hands just shows you how much good or bad it can do - if you’re a billionaire you can engage in genuine philanthropy or you can have a pet project and consequences be damned. That again is an indictment on our modern unequal society.

When you add in the white male backlash against POC and women which has the Alt right (against POC) and MRA groups (against women) spearheading it then you have a toxic cocktail. In a society where ID politics is king it’s a perfect storm.