NORFOLK -- Thousands of children in Virginia are born with growth disorders. They rely on human growth hormone simply to grow.

HGH can increase a person's height and muscle mass.

Following a congressional hearing earlier this year on the illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs, including human growth hormone, legislators moved toward making changes in the classification of HGH.

They drafted Senate Bill S. 277, which would reclassify it as a Schedule III controlled substance. It’s designed to close loopholes that allow professional athletes to obtain and use growth hormone to enhance their performance. It would have put growth hormone in a class with anabolic steroids and hard-core drugs like LSD and amphetamines.

Parents of children who take growth hormone for growth disorders oppose the bill. Maloy and Rodney van Faussien of Norfolk said that restriction in the legislation as originally worded would have driven up the cost and increased the hardship in obtaining growth hormone for thousands of children like their daughter Tori.

“Because these guys are using it for enhancement, they’re going to punish the people who need it for a medical reason,” said Rodney van Faussien of Norfolk, whose daughter has a growth disorder. Tori , 7, takes hGH to stimulate her body to grow.

When she was born at only 26 weeks, she weighed just one pound, seven ounces and was 12 inches long. In the months and years to come, Tori's height and weight stayed far below normal.

"We'd go in for weekly checks, and instead of gaining weight, she wasn't gaining," said Tori's mother, Maloy.

Finally, a geneticist at CHKD diagnosed little Tori with Russell Silver Syndrome, a growth disorder characterized by small stature, a high forehead and asymmetric body.

For medical, and practical, reasons, Tori's parents put her on hGH in December.

Angered by restrictions the proposed bill would place on families, van Faussien said, “They’re suggesting to limit the availability to it and our access to it. I say they need to rethink their plan.”

Parents united and lobbied Congress, saying the kids would suffer for the sins of the adults. “Punish the abusers, not the children,” became the mantra of parents belonging to the MAGIC Foundation, a support group for parents of children with a variety of growth disorders.

“If they’re going to punish somebody, punish the abusers,” van Faussien, a Norfolk police officer, said. “Penalize the ones who are using not for growth purposes but for performance enhancement.”

"It's not a steroid to build muscle," asserted Tori's mother. "It's for her body to produce cells it needs just like hormone replacement women take after they reach menopause."

Since the parental outcry, language in S. 477, sponsored by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that would have changed the classification of HGH, was dropped. According to a published report, the new draft under consideration would prohibit growth hormone for performance enhancement and make it a federal crime to possess it without a prescription.

The bill may be voted on in the Senate in the coming weeks and parents like the van Faussien are watching to see that the compromise bill is approved.

Source: http://www.wvec.com/news/health/