Blocked
An Australian gender doctor swallows his claim that parents are free to import puberty blocker drugs for their children
Rethink
A prominent gender clinician and board member of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health has abandoned his claim that it is legal for parents to import into Australia cut-price puberty blockers for their children.
Dr Darren Russell’s claim that parents can save almost $1000 a year with perfectly legal imports of puberty blockers has vanished from the website of his national online gender clinic Prism Health. Last Friday, GCN contacted him to alert him to contrary advice from the federal regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
Dr Russell did not reply when asked the source of his legal advice and whether any parents had acted upon it.
Leuprorelin and other puberty blocker drugs known as GnRH analogues are “prohibited imports” punishable by a fine up to $330,000, and although a case can be made for “special access” to such imports, it has to involve a “clinical justification,” not mere “cost or convenience,” a TGA spokesperson told GCN.1
The state of Queensland has paused new treatment of gender-distressed minors with subsidised puberty blockers in the public health system, pending an independent review of the evidence.2 Gender clinicians and parents of children who identify as trans or non-binary are looking for other sources of these costly drugs.
The UK Labour government has banned private prescribing of puberty blockers and the NHS will only offer them during a proposed clinical trial, reflecting the experimental nature of this poorly-evidenced intervention in a healthy child’s normally timed puberty.3
Up until recently, Dr Russell’s Prism Health website noted the $700-plus cost of puberty blocker injections every three months in Australia’s private health sector, and advised parents that these off-label medications “can be imported from overseas suppliers at a cost of around $460 per injection—in Australia this is legal with a doctor’s prescription.”
That claim is gone, replaced by a vague suggestion that “there may be other ways to have these drugs made available more cheaply. Feel free to ask Dr Darren for more information.”
Dr Russell’s website has also removed legal advice on access for minors to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, following a challenge to its accuracy by Emeritus Professor of Law Patrick Parkinson, who said the online clinic’s incorrect advice favoured easier access to these controversial treatments.
Video: UK journalist Andrew Neil challenges GenderGP’s Dr Helen Webberley over the “transition or suicide” narrative and her dismissal of the report by suicide prevention expert Professor Louis Appleby, who found there was no truth in claims of a suicide spike among minors denied puberty blockers4
Off-label drugs
Puberty blockers, which are not licensed to treat gender dysphoria, are subsidised by taxpayers at large public gender clinics in Australia’s state children’s hospitals. On January 28, the Queensland government issued a directive pausing any new hormonal treatment for gender distress in the state’s public health system.
It appears that gender medicine lobby the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (AusPATH); the public Queensland Children’s Gender Service, which is subject to the new treatment ban; and sympathetic doctors in the private sector are collaborating to keep up new prescriptions of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.
Last month, a Queensland general practitioner (GP, or primary care doctor) told colleagues in a social media group that AusPATH had been “communicating closely with staff” at the children’s gender service and had “raised a significant amount of money”—with the costly treatment in mind being unsubsidised puberty blockers sought by families in the private health sector.
This GP’s post, titled “Gender Affirming Care for QLD Youth,” said the gender service “can still triage, assess and treat adolescents within the multidisciplinary team that they are well known for. They are able to provide a health summary, and share care with external providers, should these services not be available within [the gender service].”
The post introduced as one such gender-affirming provider “Prof Darren Russell”—he is listed as an adjunct professor at James Cook University—and noted his website details and his offer to do telehealth appointments across the country from his base in the state of Victoria.
Until late 2024 Dr Russell was director of the public Cairns Sexual Health Service in far-north Queensland.
One of the triggers for Queensland’s treatment pause and ensuing inquiries was a finding of “apparently unauthorised” treatment at that Cairns service after a whistleblower raised concerns about the prescribing of puberty blockers for a 12-year-old child. An internal review had noted “medico-legal concerns relating to patient and parental consent.”
On January 31, The Cairns Post newspaper reported that some children at the service had allegedly been given puberty blockers without parental approval.
“It’s hard to know what’s happened, but it’s very disappointing because we [at the Cairns service] … were known nationally as a centre of excellence,” Dr Russell told The Post, which stated that he was not accused of any wrongdoing.
“We established arguably the best gender service in the country, within a regional centre.”
The Guardian Australia media outlet last month interviewed Dr Russell and his Brisbane patient for an article headlined “Queensland’s ban on puberty blockers and hormones left Liam devastated. A Victorian doctor stepped in.”5
Progressive media, AusPATH and the LGBTQ lobby Equality Australia have all published criticism of the Queensland treatment pause with the clear implication that the benefits of hormonal treatment are not in doubt and that minors denied these interventions are likely to attempt suicide.
The “transition or suicide” narrative is used by “gender-affirming” clinicians and activists internationally to influence public debate and policymaking as well as to pressure parents reluctant to go along with gender medicalisation of their children.
Multiple systematic reviews—undertaken independently in jurisdictions such as Finland, the UK, Sweden, Florida, Germany and Canada—have found the evidence for the use of puberty blockers with gender-distressed minors to be very weak and uncertain, meaning it cannot be known with confidence whether these drugs help or harm.
GCN sought comment from Dr Russell, AusPATH’s president Professor Ashleigh Lin, and Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls. This reportage is not suggesting wrongdoing by health providers or advocates, but highlights the international scientific and ethical debate about the practice of paediatric gender medicine. It is not disputed that gender-affirming clinicians believe their interventions benefit vulnerable young people.
The source for the quantum of penalty was the federal Department of Home Affairs. In its initial response to GCN’s question about the legality of puberty blocker importation, the TGA described the Personal Importation Scheme, which seemed to match Dr Russell’s claim. However, the TGA subsequently noted that “some puberty blockers” might come under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956. GCN pursued this issue with the TGA and Home Affairs.
Here is the final statement from the TGA—
“The Personal Importation Scheme allows individuals to import up to a 3-month supply of an unapproved therapeutic good for personal use or use by someone in your immediate family into Australia EXCEPT if the goods contain a prohibited import under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956.
“As far as TGA is concerned, the Personal Importation Scheme cannot be used to import the medicine Leuprorelin.
“Leuprorelin is a synthetic analogue of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Natural and manufactured gonadotropins are listed in Item 2 of Schedule 7A of the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956. This means that Leuprorelin is a prohibited import and requires approval via the Special Access Scheme and an import permit from the Office of Drug Control.
“Under the Special Access Scheme (SAS), an Australian registered medical practitioner must submit an application to the TGA and provide clinical justification (cost is not considered to be an appropriate clinical justification) to explain why the imported ‘unapproved’ product is more appropriate than the medicine that is included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) which has been evaluated for safety, quality and efficacy.
“The Special Access Scheme is intended to provide a legal mechanism for doctors to access unapproved goods for patients when they have trialled or considered all other ARTG products for their patient’s medical condition.
“If SAS approval is granted, the medical practitioner, or a pharmacy on behalf of the medical practitioner, may apply for import permission from the Office of Drug Control, under Regulation 5G of the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956.
“Please note, however, that it is the responsibility of the treating medical practitioner to determine if prescribing and administration of the product is in accordance with their relevant State or Territory regulations.”
The government agency responsible for the Queensland Children’s Gender Service has posted an FAQ page which seems to prejudge the outcome of the independent review ordered by the state’s Health Minister Tim Nicholls. The agency declares treatment at the gender service to be “safe” and “evidence-based,” citing a flawed 2024 evaluation of the service.
Puberty blockers (GnRH analogues) do not have regulatory approval for use with gender dysphoria; they are used off-label. Nor are blockers subsidised for this use by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Dr Webberley’s online gender clinic, Dr Russell’s Prism Health and the Queensland Children’s Gender Service all say they use the same low-quality gender dysphoria treatment guidelines issued by the gender clinic of the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Melbourne. Prism Health claims it “adheres to the highest standards of care” from “reputable sources” such as AusPATH and its global counterpart WPATH.
Dr Webberley’s GenderGP clinic was implicated in a 2024 English High Court case where a paediatric endocrinologist gave evidence that a high starting dose of testosterone prescribed by the clinic had put a 15-year-old female patient with autism at risk of sudden death. The same or similar starting dose is given as an option in the RCH treatment guidelines (see P30 at bottom right).
Dr Russell’s interest in the importation of generic Leuprorelin predates the Queensland treatment freeze. His stated rationale is to widen access to a medication that he regards as helpful.
The ‘Australian Professional Association of Trans Health’ will, in all probability, be seen as responsible for a great deal of damage to children in the years to come.
But these doctors are sincerely wrong.