(Part Two of my reporting on the resurgence in hormone replacement therapy. Part One, on the 2002 findings of the Women’s Health Initiative, is here.)
Let’s get this part out of the way first.
Garnet Anderson is a woman.
And in menopause.
And a University of Washington professor and the lead author on the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative paper that reported estrogen-progesterone hormone replacement therapy carries increased risks of heart attacks and breast cancer.
Let’s get this out of the way second: Anderson does NOT want to pull hormone replacement therapy from the market.
She does not minimize menopause symptoms or the reality that hormone therapy treats them for many women. When I emailed her to ask her what she thought of the recent HRT resurgence and the attacks on her 2002 paper, she answered:
We all acknowledge that they [hormone therapies] are quite effective for [menopausal symptoms]. There was no reason to test hormone therapy for menopause.
What was the point of the WHI research, then? As Anderson explained, the National Institutes of Health funded the study to see if hormone replacement therapy could reduce cardiovascular disease in women:
We were simply trying to develop high-quality data to support (or refute) that claim, since the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] had refused to approve the heart disease indication based on the observational data. As surprising as it was to all of us, the WHI data revealed that hormone therapy effects are inconsistent with disease prevention…
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-lead-author-of-the-jamawomens