Drug companies have tried for nearly a decade to downplay the breast cancer risks of their HRT treatment and so keep sales up – but this week their lies and spin have been uncovered.
Nine years ago, research discovered that the drugs caused breast cancer – and the drug companies countered that the cancers were not aggressive and were easily treatable. Now the same researchers have discovered that the claim is not true – HRT causes advanced and life-threatening breast cancer.
In those nine years, doctors have continued to prescribe HRT to many thousands of women, who have been unnecessarily exposed to the risk of developing an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Researchers from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) – who first raised the alarm about HRT’s risks nine years ago – have this week published their latest discovery.
After tracking the health of 16,608 post-menopausal women for nearly eight years, the researchers found that the combined estrogen plus progestin HRT therapy dramatically increased the breast cancer risk. Contrary to the drug companies’ claims, the cancers were aggressive, and doubled the numbers who died from the disease compared to healthy controls.
(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2010; 304: 1684-92).
