A Growing Controversy

Should researchers stop a study that gives healthy kids a drug to make them taller?

Short kids don't have it easy. They are pitied by playmates and picked on by bullies. More worrisome to some parents, short kids often grow up into short adults. Today many unhappy youngsters and their families have their hopes pinned on what is being touted as a medical fix to the problem: injections of a synthetic version of human growth hormone (HGH). But efforts to test the drug have exploded into a medical and ethical controversy. The chief issue: Can an experiment that gives healthy children a drug simply to change their looks be justified?

The debate flared anew last week...

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