New Study Confirms Estrogen Replacement Therapy for Menopause Doubles Women’s Risk of Breast Cancer
Dec 16th, 2008 by admin
Taking menopause hormones for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer, according to a new analysis of a big federal study that reveals the most dramatic evidence yet of the dangers of these still-popular pills.
Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting cancer. And when they stopped taking them, their odds quickly improved, returning to a normal risk level roughly two years after quitting.
…It is clear that breast cancer rates plunged in recent years mainly because millions of women quit hormone therapy and fewer newly menopausal women started on it, said the study’s leader, Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
…the Women’s Health Initiative … tested estrogen and progestin pills that doctors long believed would prevent heart disease, bone loss and many other problems in women after menopause. The main part of the study was stopped in 2002 when researchers saw surprisingly higher risks of heart problems and breast cancer in hormone users.
So, tell us something that, as feminist women, we didn’t know and haven’t been saying for DECADES by now. I have worn myself out writing and talking about the dangers of ERT, only to watch as women panicked and continued to want to take these harmful pharmaceuticals even after the dangers of taking them were known! Patriarchal medicine — how many times and ways can this be said before women pay attention — is simply no friend to womankind. The Women’s Health Initiative is now set to begin a similar study of women who took estrogen only (as opposed to estrogen and progesterone, as with ERT). In general, women who have been prescribed estrogen only are women who have had hysterectomies (usually unnecessary ones.)
H/t Global Sisterhood Network, full article at Truthout.
“Patriarchal medicine — how many times and ways can this be said before women pay attention — is simply no friend to womankind.”–Heart
Absolutely true, Heart. The obscenely rich MEN who own and profit from Big Pharma wanted to sell us the usual bill of goods, and the payoff for all men in general was (forgive my vulgarity, but I believe this) sex partners who stayed better lubricated past their “prime.” And had less wrinkles, younger-looking skin, and etc. None of this was in the women’s interests. None.
I’m usually the upbeat, unifier type in my comments, but all of the over-prescribing of HRT has been making me angry for a long time before this study came out. I knew a female chiropractor who had never smoked, drank, and who ate healthily and thought positively all of her life and had to have major cancer surgery (uterine cancer, spread beyond the uterus) in her late seventies. It turned out she had been taking the same level of estrogen for DECADES. Her doctor kept doling it out year after year with no adjustment or indication of ever quitting.
As you sometimes comment, ::::rage::::
If you think it is bad with the doctors pushing HRT (as it is called in the UK/Aust) for regular menopause — they go into an absolute tailspin of horror stories if you refuse HRT for a premature menopause.
I could never take the OCP, so it was no surprise that my body disliked HRT too.
Here we go again. How many times does it have to be said and proven?
No amount. NO good. No type or formulation, not even so-called bio-identical. Wow is that latter ever a misnomer. A hormone is a hormone, and our bodies make them very complex and inteacting. Not separately such as estradiol, estrone and horse piss estrogen which is what’s in the pills. Even the so-called natural hormones sold in the health food stores has been proven to have pharmaceutical grade hormones in the creme, but not on the label. And no, there is no such thing as yam hormone without it becoming that pharmaceutical grade hormone in a lab before it goes into the creme.
Beware.
We have to question all medical “solutions” that interfere with women just as they are. Since we are in such a male pornified youth obsessed country, anything that men create to make women look younger has got to be questioned.
It always shocks me to meet so many women who feel forced somehow to want to look anything other than the age they actually are. Mind boggling.
I am delighted when I meet women who look their ages; somehow they seem more confident and self-assured.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of money women on the west side of Los Angeles pay for plastic surgery of all kinds, and they aren’t even actresses.
I agree that the hidden motive is the “vulgar” one Level Best suggested. Men are so corrupt and so creepy, they’d subject women to cancer causing agents just to augment their own sexually obsessed selves. One of these days a study will come out telling about how all men taking viagra get high rates of cancer. I’ll have no sympathy for the sex nuts whatsoever!!! None!!! None and more of NONE grrrrr….
Gives new, sad meaning to the phrase “everyone has their price”.
AIDS, Gardasil, Cerverix
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/nobel_prize_bribery/2008/12/12/161399.html
Swedish Officials Investigating Nobel Prize Board Friday, December 12, 2008 7:18 PM By: Celia Farber Article Font Size The Nobel Prize Committee is facing investigation of bribery and corruption after allegedly taking huge payments from a pharmaceutical company that directly benefits from the work of this year’s Nobel Prize winner in medicine. The astonishing scandal, being reported in the European trade press and conspicuously absent from Sweden’s major daily newspapers, surfaced just days before the internationally renowned awards were presented in Stockholm on Wednesday. According to Swedish trade journal Dagens Medicin, Swedish state prosecutors are checking into allegations that two Nobel-affiliated corporations — Nobel Media and Nobel Webb — may have received “many millions” of dollars from Swedish-American pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca, which holds patents on and collects royalties for both human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines currently available — Gardasil in the U.S. and Cerverix in Europe — stands to benefit financially from the 2008 Nobel Prize given to German Harald zur Hauser for his discovery of HPV and its link to cervical cancer. Medical industry analyst Johan Unnerus, told the German newspaper Heidenheimer Zeitung on Friday that Astra is expected to earn between $30 million and $50 million annually from its financial interest in the two market-leading vaccines. The trade journal reported Friday that the Nobel Committee’s financial connections with AstraZeneca “may be criminal.” Swedish state Prosecutor Christer van der Kwast told Dagens Medicin that he had ordered a full criminal investigation, on the eve of Wednesday’s lavish award ceremonies, adding dryly: “It was not my intention to ruin the party.” Swedish state radio Sveriges Radio reported more conflicts of interest this week, involving at least two Nobel Committee academics: Professor of metabolic research Bo Angelin, from the Karolinska Institute, is both on the board of AstraZeneca, and a voting member of the Nobel Committee. Another highly placed academic in the Nobel Committee, Bertil Fredholm, was revealed to have been a paid consultant for AstraZeneca through 2006. “When these kinds of revelations come to light, of course it becomes our highest priority to investigate,” van der Kvast said. “The criminal charges that may become formalized are bribery and corruption.” Zhou Yi, an AstraZeneca spokeswoman in London tells Newsmax that while the pharmaceutical giant does collect money from the core patents on the HPV vaccines, the company held no sway in the Nobel selection. “Our connection is to two Nobel subcommittees, Nobel Media and Nobel Webb,” Yi says, “Our sponsorship is strictly about helping get the word out globally on the benefits of medical breakthroughs. These two committees are not the groups responsible for choosing a Nobel Prize winner.” Yi did confirm that AstraZeneca board member Bo Angelin also sits on the committee that votes on Nobel candidates, but said it was still unclear whether he had actually voted for Hauser. “I can tell you AstraZeneca, as a company, did not influence this award in any way,” Yi says. Meanwhile, controversy also centered on the other half of the Nobel prize in medicine, given to Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, for his claims of the 1983 discovery of what was termed the “AIDS virus.” International medical ethics watchdog group The Semmelweis Society has issued a press release drawing attention to numerous breaches of scientific standards that undermine the notion that an “AIDS virus” was ever discovered, or proven to be causative. ©
2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Anyone who thinks these imputations about hormone replacement therapy are too harsh should check out Feminine Forever, by Dr. Robert Wilson. What a piece of work.
Thanks for posting that article, Sis. Sometimes I wonder if there are any bounds to the corruption in modern medicine.
Is there any correlation between breast cancer and hormone-based birth-control pills/patches? Does anyone know?
Even the Cleveland Clinic, that bastion of pharmaceutical whoring, says “maybe”. If they said anything more definitive they’d lose their Wyeth funding. I know I’ve seen more definitive work done by non-industry funded researchers, but I haven’t the time to search it down right now. When I come across it again, I’ll post it somewhere for you.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that women who’ve taken the bcp for years are now at fertility clinics because they can’t get pregnant at 40 or so. Also, IMO, no coincidence, that many women who took the bcp for years have breast cancer. Three in my own small circle of friends. I don’t think it’s only dose related. I think the bcp itself is causing women’s cancers, and of course, also suspect, xenoestrogens and xytoestrogens.
From the Cleveland Clinic site:
Does taking birth control pills increase my risk of developing breast cancer?
“Maybe. Studies that have examined the use of oral contraceptives as a risk factor for breast cancer have produced conflicting results. *(Ed: Sis — the reason being industry funded studies skew the results favourably). Some researchers think this might be due to the fact that the level of hormones in birth control pills has changed since they were first studied. Early birth control pills contained much higher levels of hormones than today’s low-dose pills. *(Ed: Sis–but since we won’t know the cancer results of the present day doses for many years, they can’t say those doses don’t also cause gyne and breast cancers.)”
That should have been “phytoestrogens.”
Oh and duh to me; get Barbara Seaman’s book “The greatest experiment ever performed on women”. All Barbara Seaman’s books.
I’ve often wondered if breast cancer — on a psychic/spiritual level also comes about because men are so obsessed with women’s breasts in this culture. The degredation women face, the gropping, the harassment all directed at women and young girls.
This is not a medical or scientific observation, but something more.
This topic came up a lot during the holidays amongst the women in my family and I’ll definitely pass along this blog post and comments along (they’re great!). I am so curious to see what comes of this. Can Wyeth still put a positive spin on this information (as they have tried again and again) or will they put all their eggs in the Pristiq basket (the menopause antidepressant). We’ll see — in the meantime, here’s a good article for anyone out there who wonders how to handle the side effects of going off HRT: http://www.womentowomen.com/bioidentical-hrt/gettingoffhrt.aspx
You mean…I was supposed to get depressed at menopause??????????
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