Italy noticed first. It was the first country to lock down during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later in 2020, researchers at Florence’s Anna Meyer Children’s University Hospital were the first to point out a puzzling trend: more young girls than ever before had been showing up at the hospital with clear signs of early-onset puberty.
The cases weren’t unique, but their frequency was. Since early-onset—or “precocious”—puberty first gained widespread clinical
