Shock, horror! HRT causes cancer!!

There have been many stories recently in the press following a report in the June 25^th, 2003 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that the risk of breast cancer doubles in women who take female sex hormones. The authors concluded that, “In the meantime, the message for physicians caring for menopausal patients is clear. The increased risk of breast cancer and the mammographic abnormalities among women in the WHI study provide further compelling evidence against the use of combination estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy”. This study and its subsequent press coverage have concentrated on the use of oestrogen and progesterone for so-called hormone replacement therapy around the menopause. The full realisation of the damage that these drugs do to female health has yet to dawn. Oral contraceptives are the same chemicals and so what is true for HRT is also true for the ‘pill’.

However, this is not news. The effect of female sex hormones causing cancer, thrombosis, heart disease, stroke etc. has been known for over 40 years. The problem here is one of perception and of marketing. The pharmaceutical industry make fortunes out of such drugs and the medical profession do very nicely, thank you, from prescribing them and from monitoring the women who take them. Again, as with vaccination, we are talking about what the medical profession calls ‘risk-benefit ratio’. Yet, it is women, every day, who gamble with their health and their lives that their individual ‘risk-benefit ratio’ is more ‘benefit’ than ‘risk’.

It is essential that all women have access to full information about such drugs before they take them. There are also excellent natural remedies and holistic treatments available to treat symptoms that occur around the menopause. There is no need, in many cases, to take these drugs, or to put more precisely, medical need. HRT is given by doctors with the explicit or implicit promise of youthful vigour and delayed ageing. In our modern society, where there is an emphasis on appearance, such messages have a powerful effect.