Transcript
Juana Summers (0:00)
About 20 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration added a black box warning to hormones used to treat menopause symptoms, symptoms that include night sweats, brain fog, weight gain, and urinary tract infections.
Dr. Marty Makary (0:13)
Prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy plummeted. In the United States, women flushed their pills down the toilet. 50 million plus women have not been offered the incredible potential of health benefits of hormone replacement therapy because of medical dogma.
Juana Summers (0:32)
That's Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner. He was speaking at a July panel about menopause and hormone replacement therapy for women. The addition of that black box warning, the strongest label the FDA uses to warn of drug related risks, came after a 2002 study by the Women's Health Initiative, which found use of hormone replacement therapy led to higher risks of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, uterine cancer, stroke, and dementia. But over the last two decades, as more and more studies have been done, many doctors say they know a lot more about how these medications can help women.
Joanne Pinkerton (1:08)
When we looked at all the data, not just the WHI, we realized that for women who were under 60 or within 10 years of menopause, it was not only effective, it was safe and actually had benefits on preventing heart disease, potentially preventing fractures, treating hot flushes and night sweatshirts.
Juana Summers (1:27)
That's Joanne Pinkerton, a menopause specialist, and she says she's seen how menopause affects women firsthand in her practice and how hormone replacement therapy has helped.
Joanne Pinkerton (1:37)
We prescribe these more contemporary hormones all the time. And one of the most gratifying parts of my job is to take somebody who is absolutely miserable, who says, I can't think, I can't function. It's affecting my work, it's affecting my relationships at home, I'm irritable, I'm snappy, I wake up four or five times at night, covers on, covers off, having to change my clothes. And within, you know, four to eight weeks, they are dramatically improved.
Juana Summers (2:04)
Pinkerton says she has patients who pick up the medication, read the black box label warning, and they get scared and decide not to use it.
Joanne Pinkerton (2:12)
That's what happens every day in my clinical practice. And then, you know, every year, maybe two or three women end up with sepsis from a urinary tract infection that I feel could have been prevented.