By Mariel Clark
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Some wealthy Manhattan parents are so desperate to give their kids a leg up when it comes to height, they're turning to drugs.
For the last five years, Upper East Side mom Margot Stern has been giving her 15-year-old son Jeffrey the prescription drug Humatrope, a growth hormone designed to help preteens get taller, the New York Post reports.
The high school sophomore started taking the pills when he was 11 years old, and only 4-feet-1 inch tall. Since then, Jeffrey's shot up to 5-foot-7 inches.
"The doctors said that he was destined to be taller," Margot Stern told the Post. "They said that the height that's owed to him is around 5-foot-8 or 5-foot-10."
Stern said she decided to put her son on the growth hormone to help him "achieve his growth potential" after doctors told her he wouldn't reach 5 feet.
Jeffrey is not alone. At least five of his classmates at the elite private Dalton School are taking the designer drug as well. Experts have seen an increase in wealthy parents disregarding their kids' genetically predisposed height and instead opting for the drugs.
"After Jeffrey grew taller than some of the kids in his class, other mothers called me," Margot Stern told the Post. "Three kids went on it as a direct result of Jeffrey."
Humatrope's availability to otherwise healthy kids is due to a change in Food and Drug Administration regulations. In 2003, FDA officials said any children who fell below the 1.2 height percentile were eligible for the growth hormones. Prior to that decision the treatment was deemed acceptable only for children with rare medical conditions that affected their height.
According to the manufacturer's Web site, Humatrope is intended for children born small for their age. The family's health insurance company has stopped covering Jeffrey's treatments, which cost $2,400 a month. Margot Stern is suing the company in Manhattan court.
Some medical experts question the ethics of using the hormones when the child's height is above the Centers for Disease Control's lowest "normal" threshold of 5 foot 3 inches.
"It's outrageous," Dr. Alan Rogol, a University of Virginia Hospital professor who specializes in development told the Post. "We're struggling to get kids up to 5 feet. Only in New York on the Upper East Side."
