Is your child on the shorter side? Is his or her natural levels of growth hormone at a normal level? Has he or she still been prescribed a growth hormone to increase his or her size? It's a strong possibility that your doctor is prescribing your child the hormone unnecessarily due to his or her own personal attitudes concerning height. A new study, led by Dr. J. B. Silvers of Case Western Reserve University, showed that some doctors may be just as swayed by their own attitudes about being short as by data, suggests a new study. According to Silvers, doctors who believe that being taller is better for a child's emotional well-being treat shorter children with growth hormone despite the fact that the child produces normal levels of the hormone. The study found that doctors especially tended to over-prescribe the treatment with boys that tended to be on the shorter side. In fact, in some cases, the doctors' own attitudes concerning their own shorter statutes increased their probability of prescribing the treatment.

The researchers gathered their results by surveying 656 pediatric endocrinologists on how they would treat different hypothetical kids "who were very short but didn't have a deficiency in growth hormone or another clear medical condition". They gave the doctors different cases that would include extensive information on the child and his parents, such as the child's gender, current height, and projected adult height, and the child's parents desire on how badly they wanted their child to take grown hormone treatment. The doctors were then asked whether or not they would start that child on growth hormone.

The researchers then give the doctors one more piece information: they would tell them how one year later, the child grew, and how the family now feels about growth hormone. The doctors would then be asked: "Do you stop treatment, continue with the same treatment, or up the dose?"

The results of the study showed that when a child had barely grown after a year on growth hormone, many "rejected conventional recommendations, which say treatment should be stopped if a kid grows less than 2 centimeters a year". Furthermore, when the doctors were presented with a case of a kid who grew only 1 centimeter in a year on growth hormone, 60 percent of them recommended upping the dose. 14 percent thought it should be kept the same, and 26 percent voted for stopping treatment. In addition, doctors were more likely to keep kids on growth hormone when the kids had been shorter to begin with, when families still wanted treatment, and when they themselves believed that being very short takes an emotional toll on kids. The study also stated that 1 in 4 of the doctors responded that growth hormone has a positive impact on very short kids, even if it ends up having "no major effect on their adult heights".

Like many medical experts, I found the study's results disturbing. Doctors may be risking a normal child's health by administering large and unnecessary doses of growth hormone. Hormone growth therapy is still thought to be experimental and should therefore be used only when necessary and, the long-term effects of giving a child growth therapy when their own natural hormone levels are normal is unknown and could be potentially harmful. Furthermore, according to medical experts, hormone growth therapy may increase a child's risk of developing diabetes and cancer in the future. Additionally, researchers agree that administering larger dosages of growth hormone may cause joint swelling, joint pain, carpel tunnel syndrome, and sleep disorders.

However, I can also say that I do not find the study's results shocking, a legal assistant of mine who is on the shorter side (5 feet tall) told me that she was actually prescribed growth hormone over twenty years ago when she was a child. Although her parents opted to forgo the treatment, they did tell her later that almost all of the doctors that pushed for the treatment were on the shorter side, and that they seemed extremely concerned about how she would be treated by other children growing up rather than just her overall health.

Before you agree to put your child on hormone growth therapy, ask your doctor about whether or not his or her natural growth levels are normal. If they are, you may want to think about forgoing treatment, Furthermore, if your child was prescribed human growth hormone unnecessarily and then developed health problems, it could have been caused by the unnecessary dosage. You may be entitled to legal recourse and medical expenses. Consult an attorney as soon as possible!