Who Killed HRT?

A conversation with Dr. Avrum Bluming & Carol Tavris, PhD, authors of ESTROGEN MATTERS.

Here’s a conundrum: Substack limits the number of words I can write in each of these missives, but I don’t want readers to miss any word of my conversation with Dr. Avrum Bluming and Carol Tavris, PhD, authors of the book Estrogen Matters. (Dr. Bluming, as you might recall, also wrote that groundbreaking paper in the journal Menopause, “‘Tis But a Scratch” along with two other eminent physicians.) Simply put, Estrogen Matters is the most important book I’ve read on the topic of HRT, aka MHT, which stand for hormone replacement therapy and menopause hormone treatment respectively (and are being used interchangeably for now.) But this book—like so many overlooked books by, for, and about women—was not reviewed in the New York Times when it was published back in 2018. (I guess estrogen…doesn’t matter? Excuse me while I scream.)

“What we now know is that the Women’s Health Initiative has walked back all but one of their early alarmist claims. Only one remains—that combination estrogen + progesterone increases the risk of breast cancer—and it’s wrong." -Dr. Avrum Bluming

“What a scandalous piece of science the WHI was and remains. Over the years, we have learned more and more about the violations of accepted scientific practice that they committed, the exaggerations of their findings, the unwarranted fears they generated in women.” -Carol Tavris, PhD

For the sake of space, I have transcribed nearly our entire conversation below the video and simply shaved off the end, when we talk about less important stuff like how the authors met and our final chit-chat. I also took the liberty of clarifying some statements, whenever necessary, and removing all of the nonessential words in the middle of our conversation which—surprise, surprise—were usually mine. Thank goodness I get the privilege of speaking to people who are smarter and more well-versed on this topic than I am.

Like so many stories of graft, greed, and deliberate misinformation, this one can be summed up thus: follow the money. How did a billion dollar study on women’s health actually harm an entire generation of women? Listen and read on…

Deborah Copaken: This is the book. And I can't believe I get to talk to you guys today. But let's get into it immediately. What the hell happened with the WHI, the Women's Health Initiative? Why was everyone taken off of estrogen?

Dr. Avrum Bluming, MD: How could that not happen? The WHI is the most expensive study ever financed, certainly by the United States government. It cost so far over $1 billion, and it's going to cost more because the results are being reanalyzed and still being followed.

Usually when a study comes out, it comes out in a medical journal article, so the doctors read it and form opinions about it. Uncommonly, this article was preceded, by one week, by a press conference. That's very uncommon. And the press conference generated alarmist headlines in newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, which wrote that although this study was supposed to go on for quite a few years more, it was being stopped prematurely because they claimed that women taking estrogen and progesterone had an increased risk of heart disease, of breast cancer, and of death.

That made headlines around the world and within the United States. The frequency of hormone replacement therapy prescriptions fell from somewhere around 44% to less than 5%, where they are now 21 years later.

Deborah Copaken: Oh, my god.