HRT – the cat’s outta da bag

Posted by Liz on Dec 14, 2009 in HRT | 0 comments

Does Wyeth’s hormone replacement therapy agent Prempro cause breast cancer? Yes, according to a jury, who recently awarded Connie Barton $75 million in punitive damages.

According to a statement quoted in a New York Times expose, a spokesperson for the pharma giant Pfizer (which recently merged with Wyeth) emphatically claims that Preempro is “a safe, federally approved drug that did not cause [the woman’s] breast cancer.”And yet, Preempro is the very same drug caused the abrupt halt of the Women’s Health Initiative trial when it was found to double the risk for breast cancer as well as increase the risk for heart attack, stroke and blood clots. Moreover, later analysis of the Women’s Health Initiative data showed that hormones also increased the risk for dementia in a subset of women. Still, the company plans to fight every Preempro award, maintaining that it has acted responsibly and has posted every warning in line with FDA guidelines.

So what do you do when a drug has known dangers, a warped risk-benefit ratio and is still widely marketed? As I’ve written time and again on this blog, many in the medical profession continue to believe in HRT and  prescribe it regularly,  not for “good health” or to slow the aging process but to control the more troublesome symptoms of menopause (e.g. hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness). And thousands of women continue to toe the party line, believing that that hormone replacement is essential to easing the aging journey (as the article’s author so aptly points out, the term “replacement” implies that it is something that is needed).

Interestingly the article maps out strategies that have been used to influence physicians, professional societies and women so as to deflect attention away from cancer concerns towards the positive, risk-preventive properties of hormone therapy. And while this piece makes me want to jump on my soapbox, I won’t attempt to dissect it further because it’s one of the most thorough and well-researched articles I’ve read in some time.  The only thing I will leave you with is that Wyeth’s actions are a true reflection of everything that’s wrong with the modern view of menopause, from menopause as a disease to waning estrogen as a symbol of all that is unattractive about an aging woman.

Rather than “rebalancing” our bodies through modern medicine, shouldn’t we be focusing on what we can do to balance the transition as we move through our lives by focusing on our relationships, our activity levels, our psyches, our connections and our diets? You can’t fix something when it’s not broken. And the only thing that appears to be broken here is the hype.

Yes, the HRT cat’s outta da bag. What do you think?