Parents pay for short children to grow taller with daily injections
Short parents are injecting their healthy children with human growth hormone in a bid to make them taller, despite medical experts warning of serious risks.
Children with normal hormone levels have been given the controversial treatment, which can cost up to $20,000 a year and is often taxpayer subsidised.
The trend is being led by parents who are giving their children - some as young as eight - daily HGH injections because they fear they will grow up to be short like them.
The hormone should be used only for genuine medical reasons such as growth disorders or dwarfism. It is subsidised on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme only for such conditions, but parents with healthy children are rorting the system.
Professor Ken Ho, chair of endocrinology at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, said he was aware of numerous short children with normal hormone levels who had been given HGH to boost height.
"People increasingly want their kids to be taller, stronger, more beautiful than somebody else's and that's why growth hormones are being sought out. Parents don't want their children to be the shortest in the class," he said. "I see a lot of parents who see me for a second opinion about the risks and benefits of this treatment and I tell them their child does not need this."
Two other prominent Melbourne hormone specialists confirmed the trend and said unscrupulous doctors were also spruiking the drug to parents who viewed shortness as a "social disadvantage". Professor Ho - who said he has been 'inundated' with anxious parents given the drug for their children without good reason - warned misuse could have serious side effects.
"Long-term use can lead to disfiguration of the body because it stimulates the growth of all tissues, including bone," he said.
The revelations come after a Sun Herald investigation last week revealed the drug is being widely prescribed by anti-ageing clinics to middle-aged men who want to look and feel younger.
Human growth hormone is released by the brain's pituitary gland and promotes growth during adolescence. The synthetic form of the hormone must be injected daily and costs up to $200 a week.
Professor George Werther, a paediatric endocrinologist at the Royal Children's Hospital, said: "The average short kid with short parents may only gain three or four centimetres. That equates to about $30,000 for each centimetre, which is a lot of taxpayers' money for something fairly questionable."
He said the hospital provided counselling for families and children affected by short stature.
The head of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Joe Tucci, said parents who used human growth hormone to make healthy children taller could cause psychological and physical harm.
"It gives the child the perception that if they're short they're not as good as other children."
This story first appeared in Sunday Life magazine, in the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age.
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