Way back in the pre-Internet dark ages of 1966, gynecologist Dr. Robert A. Wilson authored “Feminine Forever” in which he launched the tide of experts touting the need for menopausal women to take exogenous estrogen. Dr. Wilson warned, “No woman can be sure of escaping the horror of this living decay. There is no need for either valor or pretense. The need is for hormones.” He heralded the shift from menopause as a life passage to a horrendous but preventable disease.

 Once drug companies realized how much money could be made selling this fountain of youth, they employed all the tricks in their very deep bag to make billions of dollars. At various points over the past four decades, the pharmaceutical industry has claimed a multitude of benefits from those little estrogen pills—they’ll protect your skin from wrinkles, keep your vagina wet and pliable, promote heart and bone health, improve muscle tone, not to mention taming the wild mood swings, hot flashes and the general malaise and withering of post-menopausal aging. As an actor who plays a doctor in a commercial says, “When considering menopause, consider the entire body of evidence.” The fake Dr. Heartman intones, “Speak to your doctor about what you can do to help protect your health during and after menopause.”

Not all voices have been so supportive of hormonal drugs. In 1977, Barbara Seaman’s book Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones warned of evidence that taking exogenous estrogen could cause breast cancer, strokes and blood clots. Her clearly articulated and evidence-backed warnings were heeded by some and ignored by many.

The evidence that taking hormones can lead to increased cancer and other health risks has been around for decades, but that didn’t stop the drug dealers (I mean, drug companies) from peddling their pills as a panacea for all the terrible effects of aging, whether it’s illnesses or the visible signs of the accumulated years. According to their convincing sales efforts, from chirpy post-menopausal post-babes, or real and faux medical professionals, we have been assured that hormones will come to the rescue.  

Despite multiple studies showing the increased risk of endometrial (uterine lining) cancer and later  studies documenting an increased incidence of breast cancer, the drug companies continued their pep-talks for estrogen and maintained their claimed innocence about the risks.

So, what’s new in the battle over hormones, health and huge profits? The courts are chiming in and they’re finding that the pharmaceutical industry wasn’t so innocent after all. A Pennsylvania jury recently  awarded over 75 million dollars to a prior estrogen-using plaintiff who subsequently developed cancer. And why are juries rewarding this cancer patient so liberally? Because documents pried with legal levers from the drug companies files have shown that they spent many millions of dollars to influence the medical and consumer communities. They distracted them from valid health concerns attempted and sometimes succeeded in undermining unfavorable scientific data, and ignored mounting evidence of risks.

The moral of the story is an old wrinkly one that is nonetheless wise—when Big Money meshes with the desire for perpetual youth, beware! The devil wears a white lab coat and his offer to trade your hot flashes now for cancer later is a very bad bargain.

Resources:

Menopause, as Brought to You by Big Pharma