Article
TARA McISAAC – 19 APRIL 2024 – THE EPOCH TIMES
Gender-transition surgeries can cost tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the procedure. Puberty blockers can cost about $4,800 annually, and feminizing hormone treatments combined can cost more than $3,000 annually per person.
The gender-reassignment surgery market was worth about US$701 million (C$970 million) globally in 2023, according to Polaris Market Research. Another estimate, by Grand View Research, puts it at US$2.1 billion in 2022 and projects it will reach US$5 billion by 2030.
“A rise in awareness and acceptance of gender-affirming health-care services among younger generations is projected to spur product demand,” Polaris said in its report published January this year. It estimates a compound annual growth rate of 12 percent in the market from now until 2032.
Alan Cassels, a B.C.-based drug policy researcher and author of the book “Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients,” has spent decades examining how the pharmaceutical industry’s interests interact with health care. He told The Epoch Times he’s worried about the boom the gender-transition industry is seeing.
“Pharmaceutical companies have so much vested interest in promoting the sale of their treatments, they also get into the promotion of the ‘disease,’” he said, describing a general phenomenon he has observed in the pharmaceutical industry throughout his decades of research. Often, conditions that don’t require medication are nonetheless treated heavily with drugs—each of which has side effects and may be detrimental to the patient in the long run, Mr. Cassels said.
