Trump has promised to ban child gender transitions - but owns stock in the Big Pharma companies he's promised to investigate for 'illegally marketing' hormone therapies and puberty blockers
Even after he's promised to go after Big Pharma for pushing such drugs to minors, former President Trump has held stock in three companies that make the puberty blockers that are essential for children undergoing a
gender transition.
'The left-wing gender insanity being pushed on our children is an act of child abuse, very simple. Here is my plan to stop the chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation of our youth,' Trump said in a campaign speech on February 1.
But as recently as the end of last year, Trump held between $600,003 and $1,251,000 in three companies that make gender-affirming therapies and hormone blockers, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of his financial disclosures.
He also financial stakes 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 'child abuse,' 'left-wing insanity' and 'mutilation' — while pledging to pass a federal law to outlaw it.
The former president and current GOP 2024 candidate promised on 'Day One' to revoke President Biden's 'cruel' policies on gender-affirming care, signing a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that 'promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.'
He's promised to urge Congress to pass a law 'prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states' and claw back Medicare and Medicaid funding from any hospital that provides gender transition care for minors.
Trump then promised to have the Department of Justice investigate Big Pharma 'to determine whether they have 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 'illegally marketed hormones and puberty blockers.'
'No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender—a concept that was never heard of in all of human history—nobody's ever heard of this, what's happening today,' Trump concluded.
Children as young as eight who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria can be given medication to halt the puberty process: an increasingly controversial practice as transgender issues and sex and gender education in schools have been launched front and center to GOP politics.
According to Trump's most recent disclosures, which cover his investments between January 2021 and December 2022, he held between $350,002 and $750,000 in Pfizer - the drug company that makes feminizing therapies depo-estradiol, depo-provera and male hormone suppressant aldactone.
Aldactone's active ingredient spironolactone is the most commonly prescribed male hormone suppressant.
Most of these medications can have other uses beyond gender transition as well: estradiol can be used to treat postmenopausal symptoms and for women who have had hysterectomies. 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 feminizing therapy.
Novartis' subsidiary Sandoz also made puberty blocker leuprolide acetate. According to Planned Parenthood, 'There are two kinds of puberty blockers: A flexible rod called histrelin acetate that goes under the skin of the arm and lasts for 1 year. A shot called leuprolide acetate, which works for 1, 3, or 4 months at a time.'
The former president invested up to $1,000 in Abbvie - a drug company that makes puberty blocker Leupron, otherwise known as leuprolide acetate.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton last year ordered Abbvie to hand over materials related to the sale of puberty blockers to children.
Between $950,000 and $2 Million in Trump's portfolio is dedicated to two companies that created coronavirus vaccines: Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson.
Trump himself is vaccinated and it was his administration that pumped funds to these companies through Operation Warp Speed to get a vaccine to market. But many of his supporters remain leery of the jab - and the former president has even been booed at events where he promoted the coronavirus vaccine.
A voter tore into Trump at a campaign stop in Iowa this week: 'We have lost people because you supported the jab.'
Trump has walked a fine line between boasting that it was his administration that got a vaccine to market and placating a base more skeptical of the jab. He's emphasized his opposition to vaccine mandates.
'Everyone wanted a vaccine at that time, and I was able to do something that nobody else could have done — getting it done very, very rapidly. But I never was for mandates; I thought the mandates were terrible,' the former president said.
'Trump responds by praising the COVID mRNA shots, doesn't acknowledge any of the adverse effects,' the DeSantis War Room wrote on Twitter, highlighting the interaction.
The Trump and Ron DeSantis campaigns have assailed each other over their candidate's Covid-19 records, with each claiming the other was more friendly to lockdowns.
In December the Florida governor even called for a grand jury investigation into alleged 'crimes and wrongdoing' on the part of vaccine manufacturers in peddling the shot to Americans.
On Tuesday the Trump campaign put out a long list entitled 'Ron DeSantis' lyin' record on COVID,' which took direct aim at the governor for promoting the vaccine.
The campaign stated: 'President Trump saved millions of lives, opposed mandates, and embraced the Federalist system to allow States to make the decisions 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.
