- Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was looking at new laws to crack down
Teenagers convinced they are the wrong gender are breaking an NHS ban on puberty blocker drugs by buying them online from foreign dealers.
Social media sites including Reddit, X and Facebook have been flooded with links to websites where the teens can buy the ‘dangerous’ drugs without any age checks or prescriptions.
This week an undercover Mail on Sunday reporter posing as a young teenage girl was able to buy large quantities of puberty blockers shipped to Britain from Turkey, Hong Kong and Russia.
Last night Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was ‘appalled’ and ‘looking closely’ at new laws to crack down.
The drugs, which halt the onset of adolescence, were banned for under-18s by the NHS last month following an outcry over their use by London’s Tavistock gender identity development clinic, which prescribed them to hundreds of children.
Serkan Senvardar, a dealer based in Turkey, shipped a testosterone-blocking drug called bicalutamide from Istanbul
Medics warned the drugs can damage brain and bone development and cause infertility.
That led to a damning government review by Dr Hilary Cass, who said the drugs pose a danger to children. Former Tavistock patients have sued the NHS over the scandal.
Dr Cass also found ‘no evidence’ the drugs gave the young ‘time to think’ about whether they really wanted to change gender.
But by following advice and links on Reddit, a Mail on Sunday reporter posing as a young teen-ager easily bought the puberty blocker drugs from three different websites in recent weeks.
The online pharmacies charge from £52 for a nasal spray to £228 for a syringe. One website boasted ‘express delivery’ and offered a 10 per cent discount for payment with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
Serkan Senvardar, a dealer based in Turkey, shipped a testosterone-blocking drug called bicalutamide from Istanbul. It arrived in London seven days after our reporter placed the order.
Sold under the brand name Casodex, bicalutamide is a prescription-only medication usually used for treating prostate cancer.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was ‘appalled’ and ‘looking closely’ at new laws to crack down
But influencers posting on Reddit have advised boys wanting to transition to girls that ‘it’s pretty effective at basically making testosterone useless’.
Last week the MoS tracked Mr Senvardar to the holiday resort of Marmaris in Turkey, where he initially told our undercover reporter she could buy more Casodex. When we later confronted him about his business, he denied involvement in the online operation.
Reacting to our findings last night, Health Secretary Ms Atkins pledged to look at ‘legislative options’ to crack down on the black market in puberty blockers.
‘I’m appalled that dangerous drugs like this are being sold to vulnerable children and commend The Mail on Sunday’s vital public interest journalism,’ she said.
Tory MP Paul Bristow said: ‘This all sounds like every parent’s worst nightmare. The people trading in distribution of these products that can cause irreversible damage to young bodies are vile.’
Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: ‘These powerful drugs were never designed to be available on demand but this investigation makes clear thousands of children are at risk. We must be relentless in s
