EXCLUSIVE — The National Institutes of Health has pumped millions of tax dollars into a yearslong research project to study the “mental health benefits” of puberty blockers, in apparent hopes of expanding access to the drugs, according to NIH documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act records request.

Since the study’s inception in 2021, the National Institute of Mental Health, an agency of NIH, has spent more than $3 million on the long-term venture, which was renewed for the 2024 fiscal year, per a repository of federally funded portfolios.