Almost as soon as the New York Times posted a long article this weekend on how the pharmaceutical industry turned “horse estrogen into a billion-dollar panacea for aging women,” the article jumped onto the newspaper’s most e-mailed list — right behind a recipe for oatmeal buttermilk blueberry pancakes.

It remained there this morning.

Women taking hormones (and the people who care about them) must be sharing the article with each other, I thought.That’s good.But the popularity of the article also bewildered me.

Are there still any women taking hormones for hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness (the only three menopausal “complaints” for which the drugs have been proven effective), given what we know about the drugs’ long list of health risks (blood clots in the lungs, stroke, heart attacks, breast cancer, colon cancer, gall bladder disease and dementia)?

In other words, can it be that the information in this article is news to any middle-aged woman?

Apparently it is.And, really, I shouldn’t be that surprised. For the disease-mongering of menopause continues. Big Pharma seems determined to resuscitate the $2-billion-plus (at its heyday) hormone "replacement" therapy market.  

And, despite the fact that there are other, safer solutions for hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness, hormones continue to be prescribed to women.

Uncovering the disease-mongering
The Times article is partially based on new court documents obtained by the newspaper from recent product-liability lawsuits women have brought against drug manufacturers for overselling the benefits of menopausal hormones and failing to warn of its risks.

The documents not only show how one drug company, Wyeth (maker of Premarin and Prempro) was able to spread “like wildfire” the now disproved claim that menopausal hormone therapy protected the heart from disease, but also how the company (acquired earlier this year by the drug giant Pfizer) “worked over decades to maintain the image and credibility of its hormone drugs even as the products were repeatedly under siege.”

Write Times reporters Natasha Singer and Duff Wilson:

By 1996, Wyeth had begun to successfully reposition menopausal hormone therapy as a protective drug for heart and other diseases, even though the FDA had approved such drugs only for the treatment of hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness and osteoporosis.

“Wyeth used proxies to promote a wide range of health benefits from hormone therapy,” report Singer and Wilson, “paying millions of dollars to influence doctors and medical groups and helping them develop abstracts for medical conferences and articles for medical journals.”

In 1997, the reporters add,

New iterations, old concerns
The court papers uncovered by the Times “illustrate a pattern in the history of hormone therapy,” write Singer and Wilson. “First, many doctors enthusiastically prescribe hormone therapy drugs. Then a few researchers publish studies cautioning about risks, causing sales to fall. And finally, some doctors start prescribing a new iteration of hormone drugs.”

Today, that “new iteration” includes the claim that “bio-identical” hormones and/or low doses of older versions of the drugs are safe.  But, as the Times reporters point out, these claims have not been proven, and “even with lower-dose hormones, doctors do not have a uniform view on what constitutes the optimal duration.”

Like shape-shifters in folklore and fantasy fiction, menopausal hormone therapy keeps returning in a difference form.

Women, don’t be fooled. Demand the evidence.