Even after promising to go after Big Pharma for marketing such drugs to minors, former President Trump has held stock in three companies that make the puberty blockers essential for children undergoing gender reassignment.
“The leftist gender insanity forced upon our children is an act of child abuse, plain and simple. This is my plan to stop the chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth,” Trump said in a campaign speech on Feb. 1.
But late last year, Trump owned between $600,003 and $1,251,000 from three companies that make gender-affirming therapies and hormone blockers, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of his financial disclosures.
He also has financial interests in Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson — a fact that could be seized on by Ron DeSantis’ campaign as the war of words over COVID records heats up in the 2024 race.
Trump has called gender transition care about “child abuse,” “left-wing insanity,” and “mutilation” — while promising to pass a federal law to ban it.
Even after promising to go after Big Pharma for pushing such drugs to minors, former President Trump has shares in three companies that make the puberty blockers essential for kids undergoing gender reassignment
Trump and DeSantis supporters outside a DeSantis event on Friday
The former president and current GOP 2024 nominee pledged on “Day One” to repeal President Biden’s “cruel” policy on gender-affirming care, signing a new executive order directing every federal agency to cease all programs that “do the promoting the concept of sex and gender’. transition at any age.’
He has pledged to push Congress to pass a law “to outlaw child sexual mutilation in all 50 states” and to reclaim Medicare and Medicaid funding from any hospital that provides gender reassignment care to minors.
Trump then promised that the Justice Department would investigate Big Pharma “to determine whether they deliberately covered up horrific long-term side effects of ‘sex transitions’ in order to get rich.”
Trump said the DOJ would investigate whether Big Pharma was “illicitly marketing hormones and puberty blockers.”
“No serious country should tell its children that they were born the wrong gender – a concept never heard of in all of human history – no one has ever heard of what is happening today,” Trump concluded.
Children as young as eight years old who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria may be given drugs to halt the puberty process: an increasingly controversial practice as transgender issues and sexual and gender education in schools are central to GOP politics.
According to Trump’s most recent revelations, which cover his investments between January 2021 and December 2022, he had invested between $350,002 and $750,000 in Pfizer – the pharmaceutical company that produces feminizing therapies depoestradiol, depoprovera and aldactone for the suppression of male hormones.
Aldactone’s active ingredient spironolactone is the most commonly prescribed male hormone suppressant.
The former president and current GOP 2024 nominee pledged on “Day One” to repeal President Biden’s “cruel” policy on gender-affirming care, signing a new executive order directing every federal agency to cease all programs that “do the promoting the concept of sex and gender’. transition at any age’
Most of these medications may also have uses other than sex reassignment: estradiol can be used to treat postmenopausal symptoms and for women who have had a hysterectomy. Spironolactone can be used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure.
He also invested between $250,001 and $500,000 in Novartis, a company that makes gender-affirming therapies Vivelle and Vivelle Dot — where estradiol is the active ingredient. Estradiol is the primary estrogen used in feminization therapy.
The Novartis subsidiary, Sandoz, also made leuprolide acetate for puberty. According to Planned Parenthood, “There are two types of puberty blockers: a flexible rod called histrelin acetate that goes under the skin of the arm and lasts for 1 year. An injection called leuprolide acetate, which works for 1, 3 or 4 months straight.”
The former president invested up to $1,000 in Abbvie – a pharmaceutical company that makes puberty blocker Leupron, also known as leuprolide acetate.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last year ordered Abbvie to turn over materials related to the sale of puberty blockers to children.
Between $950,000 and $2 million in Trump’s portfolio is earmarked for two companies that made coronavirus vaccines: Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson.
Trump himself has been vaccinated and it was his administration that pumped money into these companies through Operation Warp Speed to bring a vaccine to market. But many of his supporters remain suspicious of the jab — and the former president has even been booed at events where he promoted the coronavirus vaccine.
A voter bumped into Trump during a campaign stop this week in Iowa: “We lost people because you supported the jab.”
Trump has walked a fine line between boasting that it was his administration that brought a vaccine to market and placating a base more skeptical of the jab. He has emphasized his opposition to vaccine mandates.
“Everyone wanted a vaccine at the time, and I was able to do something that no one else could have done — get it done very, very quickly. But I was never for mandates; I thought the mandates were terrible,” the former president said.
“Trump responds by praising the COVID mRNA recordings, does not acknowledge any of the adverse effects,” the DeSantis War Room wrote on Twitter, highlighting the interaction.
The Trump and Ron DeSantis campaigns have attacked each other over their candidate’s Covid-19 records, with each claiming the other was kinder to lockdowns.
In December, Florida’s governor even called for a grand jury inquiry into alleged “crimes and misdeeds” on the part of vaccine manufacturers in peddling the shot at Americans.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign released a lengthy list titled “Ron DeSantis’ lying record about COVID,” which aimed directly at the governor for promoting the vaccine.
The campaign read: “President Trump has saved millions of lives, resisted mandates and embraced the Federalist system to empower states to make the decisions that are best for their people. Ron DeSantis continues to lie about his record as he personally oversaw mass vaccinations and imposed radical lockdowns.”
DailyMail.com reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.