Rehabilitating HRT. Pharmaceutical medicine continues the process.

Today, 2 February 2022, the UK's drug regulator, the MHRA, has suggested that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) could become available over-the-counter without a doctor's prescription. The possibility was heralded by the BBC, always a great supporter of pharmaceutical drugs. The drug is Gina 10, or estadiol, and the BBC article goes to great lengths interviewing conventional medical practitioners, who provide reassurance about the safety of the drug. For example, they quote the NHS.

            "Some types of HRT slightly increase the risk of breast cancer and blood clots in some women, but the risks are small and usually outweighed by the benefits".

I have written before about the history of HRT drugs. In November 2015, for instance, I wrote an article entitled "Menopause Issues and NICE guidelines? HRT might cause cancer, heart problems and dementia, but what the hell, women should take it anyway! In this I quoted from the British Medical Journal in , 2007 (335: 239-44).

            "Eventually, several trials produced results that were so bad they had to be discontinued. In 2002, trials conducted by the Women’s Health Initiative in the USA, described as 'the largest and best designed federal studies of HRT'  was halted because women taking the hormones had a significantly increased risk of breast  and cervical cancer, heart attacks, stroke and blood clots. More trials were terminated in 2007, when a study of 5,692 women taking HRT raised similar concerns but added 'more definition to the health risks'.

At the time I suspected that this might prove to be the end of HRT, but I clearly underestimated the ability of the conventional medical establishment to promote and sell dangerous drugs.

My 2015 article now contains several subsequent postscripts about conventional medicine's attempts to 'rehabilitate' hormone replacement therapy. The BBC enumerates how successful this rehabilitation has been. From a complete ban on HRT drugs in 2007 it states that 150,000 women are now prescribed HRT.

 So perhaps Gina 10, or estadiol, is different, perhaps it is safer? The BBC certainly wants us to believe this. It quotes one doctor.

            "It's different to HRT and it doesn't reduce the health risks of the menopause, but it is very safe".

 Whenever I hear a conventional doctor saying that a pharmaceutical drug or vaccine is safe, I run for cover! So I went to the drugs.com website to check. It makes horrendous reading, and contains one of the longest "warning" boxes that I have ever seen. I will not reproduce it here, the above link can be easily accessed.

Yet any woman who is considering taking this drug, it is important to read this information before making their decision. An "informed decision" is only possible after reading it - as it is clear conventional medicine will never be honest about the safety of their medicines.

• The BBC, as usual, are willing to promote a pharmaceutical drug, regardless of how dangerous it might be. 
• Conventional medical doctors may be willing to toe the line, and call any pharmaceutical drug "safe".

But no patient should ever take any pharmaceutical drug without checking the known, or at least the admitted adverse reactions is can cause.

So what should a woman do, who is suffering from serious menopausal symptoms? Conventional medicine has nothing else to offer - which is one of the reasons HRT is being regularly rehabilitated by the NHS. Women should certainly not suffer in silence. There are alternative to conventional medical treatment, much safe, and more effective treatments offered by natural medical therapies.

Homeopathy is one of them, certainly the one that I would recommend.

Why Homeopathy? for Menopause.

If it does nothing else (and it will) it will protect you from the harm of pharmaceutical treatment.

 

See also my previous blogs on the dangers of Hormone Replacement Therapy.

August 2016.         HRT Treatment causes Cancer. Old News but New News.

October 2019.       BREAST CANCER. Why is it that conventional medicine does not understand that HRT is a significant cause of this? Who protects patients from harmful drugs?

November 2021.   The Menopause, HRT, and Breast Cancer.

 

 

 

The Menopause, HRT, and Breast Cancer

I have written about the menopause, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and breast and cervical cancer many times before. To do so again is certainly deja vu! But headline health news recently provided us with "good" news - at least this is how it has been universally heralded:

HRT Prescription Charges to be Reduced.

       "The cost of repeat HRT prescriptions will be cut in a move set to save women who rely on the treatment 'hundreds of pounds per year', the government has announced. Working with NHS England, the government says it will look to implement longer prescribing cycles 'in line with NICE guidelines', so women receive fewer prescriptions, meaning they pay fewer prescription charges. The government has asked NHS England to review current practice and the barriers to implementing NICE guidance. To further improve access to HRT, the government will also look at the possibility of combining 2 hormone treatments into one prescription, so women only pay a single charge. It says this change would benefit around 10% of women accessing HRT".

Patients in particular were said to be delighted at the outcome - clearly the decision is going to save them money - and this is usually a good reason for delight! But should it be? The history of HRT is closely linked to breast and cervical cancer.

• In the early 2000's, research began to demonstrate the strong link between HRT and cancer, to the extent that the research was stopped because it was considered unsafe, and unethical to continue.

       "....several trials produced results that were so bad they had to be discontinued.  In 2002, trials conducted by the Women’s Health Initiative in the USA, described as 'the largest and best designed federal studies of HRT'  was halted because women taking the hormones had a significantly increased risk of breast  and cervical cancer, heart attacks, stroke and blood clots. More trials were terminated in 2007, when a study of 5,692 women taking HRT raised similar concerns but added 'more definition to the health risks' (WDDTY 9 August 2007, source: British Medical Journal, 2007; 335: 239-44).

• So from 2007, some 5 years too late, HRT was virtually suspended for several years.
• Then, in 2015, like magic, HRT was rejuvenated. The research was discounted, so doctors could began prescribing it again, and so women began taking it again - in large numbers. HRT might cause breast cancer, heart problems and dementia, but (what the hell) women should take it anyway!
• But then, in 2016, just one year later, there was a warning. HRT could cause breast cancer! As I said at the time, it was 'old news' presented as 'new news'. But nothing was done, no action was taken to protect women.
  
• Now, a further 5 years on, we are being asked to rejoice - because these dangerous drugs are to be made available to women far cheaper than they were before.

What this demonstrates, of course, is that medical science has a short memory, even about its own research, and further, that this amnesia places patients at risk of dangerous and harmful drugs. It tells us that the conventional medical establishment is prepared to give patients pharmaceutical drugs, regardless of the harm they are known to cause!

So what does conventional medicine say about the causes of breast cancer? This is just one of the serious adverse reactions to HRT, but this is what the UK's NHS state

        "The causes of breast cancer are not fully understood, making it difficult to say why one woman may develop breast cancer and another may not."

If you persevere, and continue down the page, after causes such as 'age', 'family history', 'previous breast cancer and lumps', 'dense breast tissue' (all of which the patient, nor medicine can do anything about), you get to hormone replacement, and a recognition that "HRT is associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer". Then it suggests that

        "There is no increased risk of breast cancer if you take HRT for less than 1 year. But if you take HRT for longer than 1 year, you have a higher risk of breast cancer than women who never use HRT."

Yet surely this is what the government has now negotiated for women, cheaper repeat prescriptions for a drug that should not be used for more than one year! What kind of medicine is this? It is more than amnesia. It provides patients with price incentives to take a dangerous drug for longer, against it's own current advice!

The NHS goes on to accept that "the increased risk of breast cancer falls after you stop taking HRT, but some increased risk remains for more than 10 years compared to women who have never used HRT".

The advice for women should surely be not to take HRT. But as pharmaceutical medicine has nothing else, certainly nothing safer to offer, it is prepared to prescribe a drug that has been proven to be lethal for women for many decades - since the 1940's.

And this is done by a medical system whose first principle is supposed to be "First, do no harm".

Yet there is an alternative, a safer medicine available. It is homeopathy. Homeopathy can deal with the menopause, and do so without causing breast and cervical cancer, heart problems, and dementia.

Why Homeopathy? for the Menopause.

Postscript: July 2022

HRT and the Menopause
So HRT was safe until the early 2000's: then it was so unsafe that research was stopped because these drugs were too dangerous; then new research in 2015 (financed by the pharmaceutical industry) 'proved' it was safe...... AND NOW "new evidence" is being considered that NICE guidelines might have to be renewed - because the drug is causing breast cancer.
    * When will conventional medicine learn?
    * When will patients learn that Con Med is not to be trusted?
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-areas/womens-health/nice-to-review-menopause-guidance-over-evidence-of-hrt-cancer-risk/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pulse%20daily
 

BREAST CANCER. Why is it that conventional medicine does not understand that HRT is a significant cause of this? Who protects patients from harmful drugs?

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) causes breast cancer!

• Conventional medicine has known this for a long time, but they continue to prescribe these drugs to female patients.

Medical science has known this for a long time. In July 2002, research indicated that HRT can increase the risk of breast cancer (and heart disease too), and the test results were so alarming they were immediately halted. Many thousands of women came off the drug as a result, at least 50% of those who had been taken them.

Then, in 2003. the University of Texas recorded a 7% drop in breast cancer rates, and a 12% drop in women aged 50 to 69. This was reported in USA Today, 14 December 2006; and New York Times, 15 December 2006). And according to a BBC News report, 15th December 2006, UK researches also measured a drop in breast cancer cases. Professor Valerie Beral, director of Cancer Research UK's Cancer Epidemiology Unit, was reported as saying that there had also been a drop in breast cancer incidence in women aged 50-64 between 2003 and 2004.

So medical science discovers that HRT causes breast cancer. Then it discovers that rates of breast cancer reduces when less HRT is prescribed.

So why is it that the magazine 'What Doctors Don't Tell You' (WDDTY) had had to tell us that 'HRT causes 1 in 20 breast cancers'? (2nd October 2019). Why did the UK's drug regulator, MHRA, have to tell doctors to discuss 'new' (sic) information on HRT breast cancer risk with women at their next routine appointment?

 Surely our doctors should already know this! They should have known it since 2002, and even earlier. Apparently WDDTY was using a Lancet article as the source of this information (The Lancet, 2019; doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31709-X).

               "HRT is twice as risky as doctors feared...."

Why?

               "The risk is greatest .....if it's taken for five years, say researchers from Oxford University. They estimate that one in 20 cases of breast cancer in the UK are caused by the drug..."
Why?

               "And women need to know the risks persist for 10 years afterwards... they don't disappear the moment they stop taking HRT, which has  been the common perception."
Why?

               "HRT prescribing  has been steadily rising over the last 10 years or so, with some studies downplaying health risks...."
Why?

               ".....but the Oxford researchers say it is vital to turn back the dial to the early 1990's when the dangers of the drug were first discovered".

The answer to all these "why's" is that medical science has little or no influence on the conventional medical establishment

• on the pharmaceutical industry (which controls most medical science)
• on the conventional medical establishment (which is supposed to be evidence led)
• or on doctors (who are supposed to be 'science led').

I have recently blogged on the current crisis with Opiate drugs, which have caused serious disease, withdrawal symptoms, and death for many - yet doctors to prescribe more of these drugs, year on year.

It is clear that medical science has little or no influence over conventional medicine, or the drug prescribing practices of our doctors.

The MIMS article, dated 4th September 2019, tacitly confirms this when it states that MHRA, Britain's drug regulator has asked doctors to "discuss (this) new (sic) information on breast cancer risk with women at their next routine appointment. Is this really a sufficient or adequate response to a drug doctors have known to cause breast cancer for over 30 years? Drug regulation is supposed to protect patients from dangerous drugs. Is a chat, some time in the future, a sufficient response to women in danger of contracting breast cancer? There is, it is stated, "no need for urgent action".

Isn't there? Just how dangerous does a drug have to be to our health before doctors are obliged to take urgent action? How dangerous does a drug have to be now before it is banned?

But "women who use, or are planning to use, HRT, should be aware of these 'new' (sic) findings when considering their HRT."

These are NOT new findings. This is NOT news. It is history that is regurgitated every few years, a piece of information that will probably never acted upon, soon forgotten, and brought up again in a few years time. So if women don't know this by now it is because their doctors have not told them, or they have downplayed the information. I have written about this subject, many times, during the last 10 years.

• Tamoxifen. Another cause of breast cancer? (September 2010)  
• The Menopause and Homeopathy (September 2013) 
• Menopause. HRT or Homeopathy? (February 2015) 
• HRT. Reporting the DIEs *Disease Inducing Effects' of Pharma Drugs (February 2015) 
• Menopause Issues and NICE guidelines? HRT might cause cancer, heart problems and dementia, but what the hell, women should take it anyway!(November 2015) 
• HRT treatment causes cancer. Old news, but new news! (August 2016) 
• Breast Cancer. And its links to Pharmaceutical Drugs (December 2017) 
• Breast Cancer. New predictive tool will be another 'game changer'! Or does it miss the most obvious cause of breast cancer? (January 2019)

The only possible conclusion is that both medical science and drug regulation are mere charades. Neither safeguard patients, you and me, from drug harm. Conventional medicine does not pay attention to its findings and directives - when they are negative - or when it has no alternative to the drugs that have been found to harm us.

I suspect that I will be writing about this again, when conventional medicine discovers yet again that breast cancer is caused by HRT!

 

Postscript

Since writing this nothing has happened. HRT is still being prescribed, as before. Medical science might inform doctors that pharmaceutical drug treatment is dangerous - but it does not appear to change their medical practice!

 

WDDTY (February 2021)

"The most common type of HRT increases the risk of breast cancer by up to 80%, a new study has found". (My emphasis). BMJ, 2020; 371, m3873.

 

So here we are again, as I predicted, more 'new' medical science; and I wonder, this time, if it will have any impact on conventional medical practice?

Breast Cancer. And its links to Pharmaceutical Drugs

Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that between 1971 to 2004 the number of breast cancer cases rose by 81% to 36,939 cases - in England alone. It had become the most common form of cancer, and it was estimated that 1 in 9 women could expect to get breast cancer during their lifetime. In 1971 the incidence of the disease was 66.9 per 100,000 people. In 2004 this had risen to 120.8 per 100,000. It became, and remains, the disease most feared by women.

Nor is breast cancer a disease that only strikes older women. As with most other cancers it now affects people at any age, and an increased incidence has been recorded across all age groups. Among women aged 20 to 34, the disease increased by 50% between 1971 to 2001. Morever, several hundred men contract the disease each year now.

So why did the rates of breast cancer rise so steeply during that time? Conventional medicine has come up with a variety of explanations, mostly based on a range of 'lifestyle factors', such as diet, increased alcohol consumption, obesity, more women going out to work, earlier menstruation, reduced breast feeding, smaller families and later menopause. It has even been called the disease of prosperity!

Maybe. But 'prosperity' probably account for only a small part of the huge increase. The role of pharmaceutical drugs has to be considered. For instance, in a Guardian article, dated 8th August 2006, Sarah Boseley wrote this:

               "The daughters of the thousands of women who took an anti-miscarriage pill more than 40 years ago are at increased risk of breast cancer. The drug, known as DES (diethylstilbestrol), was commonly prescribed for pregnant women between the 1940s and 1960s if doctors thought they were at risk of miscarrying and sometimes also for morning sickness. There are no definite figures for the number of women who took it, but research suggests there may have been as many as 200,000 in the UK".

The article, written at a time when the mainstream media was prepared to be mildly critical of conventional medicine, described a study by scientists at Boston University, published in the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. It found that the daughters of women who took DES had an almost double risk of breast cancer of their peers. And the more their mothers took of this now banned drug, the greater their chance of developing the disease. Concern about the side effects of DES started in the early 1970s when first it was discovered that 1 in 1,000 girls born to women who had taken the drug were likely to develop vaginal cancer. It was then found that the women who had taken it had an increased risk of breast cancer.

DES was withdrawn in the 1970’s and is no longer used in the developed world - except for prostate cancer (men beware)!

So it is well known that pharmaceutical drugs has been a important part in the rise of breast cancer figures. And if there were sufficient research done on the adverse reaction of pharmaceutical drugs, more evidence would almost certainly be found.

Another culprit is probably chest X-rays. A Times-on-Line article, dated 27th June 2006 outlined research on 1,600 women that indicated that women under-20 who had a chest X-ray had a 2.5 times greater chance of developing breast cancer before their 40th birthday, whilst women with a family history of breast cancer were 54% more likely to suffer the disease. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Calls were made for further research into the link between breast cancer and X-rays. They have not been done - conventional medicine does not go out of its way looking for 'bad' news about any of its treatments!

Yet for many years, the massive use of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) during the previous decades had been the drug most implicated in the rise and rise of breast cancer. So what happens when the prescription of a pharmaceutical drug, implicated in causing disease, is significantly reduced? If HRT was a significant cause of breast cancer, perhaps the increased incidence of the disease would also start to fall.

And this is exactly what has happened!

In July 2002, research indicated that HRT can increase the risk of breast cancer (and heart disease too), and the tests were halted as a result. Many thousands of women came off the drug as a result, at least 50%. In 2003 the University of Texas recorded a 7% drop in breast cancer rates, and a 12% drop in women aged 50 to 69. This was reported in USA Today, 14 December 2006; and New York Times, 15 December 2006). According to a BBC News report, 15th December 2006, UK researches also measured a drop in breast cancer cases. Professor Valerie Beral, director of Cancer Research UK's Cancer Epidemiology Unit, was reported as saying that there had also been a drop in breast cancer incidence in women aged 50-64 between 2003 and 2004.

So here is a very clear link between disease, breast cancer in this instance, and pharmaceutical drug treatment. Yet what happened following the virtual withdrawal of HRT, and the reduction in breast cancer rates, defies belief!

The conventional medical establishment put this evidence of reduced breast cancer as a victory! Our doctors told us that it indicated that conventional medicine was beginning to win the battle with cancer generally, and breast cancer was put forward to justify the claim! This was a brilliant piece of marketing!

• First, conventional medicine causes a disease. 
• Second, it withdraws the drug that has caused the disease. 
• Third, it claims the credit for reducing the disease, even though it caused it in the first place!

Good marketing perhaps, but little to do with the reality, and even less to do with honesty! And unfortunately what happened afterwards has little to do with patient safety. Conventional medicine has tried to rehabilitate HRT, which means that more women are taking the drug, and many of them will contract breast cancer as a result. I have written about this rehabilitation in two blogs.

Menopause Issues and NICE guidelines? HRT might cause cancer, heart problems and dementia, but what the hell, women should take it anyway!

HRT treatment causes cancer. Old news, but new news!

There is only one lesson that can be learnt from this sequence of events - conventional medicine cannot be trusted with our health. It creates illness with its drugs. It creates profit from our illness. And then our doctors do not tell us truth.

So one of the best ways to avoid breast cancer is to avoid pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines - at any cost!

Menopause Issues and NICE guidelines? HRT might cause cancer, heart problems and dementia, but what the hell, women should take it anyway!

"Women whose lives are being affected by the symptoms of menopause should not feel they have to suffer in silence". This is the guidance of NICE, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

Instead, their guidance to doctors recommends hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which the say is "effective for treating several menopausal symptoms". It recommends that doctors offer HRT for hot flushes and night sweats "after discussing the risks and benefits".

HRT has been around for many years. Premarin was first introduced in 1942. So why has this NICE advice only been brought out today (12th November 2015)? NICE explains.

          "Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a treatment option for menopausal symptoms, yet over the last decade confusion over its safety has led to a decline in its use and variation in practice" (my emphasis).

So, there has been 'confusion' for the last decade over its safety. What is this confusion? NICE does not bother to tell us. Indeed, in the whole of their guidance article, the word 'CANCER' is mentioned just once, and that tucked away at the bottom of the article! Perhaps they hope that we have forgotten about HRT's safety issues. So if there are women who have forgotten, and might be considering taking HRT, this is something I wrote several years ago.

          "Eventually, several trials produced results that were so bad they had to be discontinued.  In 2002, trials conducted by the Women’s Health Initiative in the USA, described as 'the largest and best designed federal studies of HRT'  was halted because women taking the hormones had a significantly increased risk of breast  and cervical cancer, heart attacks, stroke and blood clots. More trials were terminated in 2007, when a study of 5,692 women taking HRT raised similar concerns but added 'more definition to the health risks' (WDDTY 9 August 2007, source: British Medical Journal, 2007; 335: 239-44).

Note that the scientific studies were stopped before they had been concluded! The results were so bad, HRT was found to be so dangerous, researchers refused to continue with the trials. It should also be noted that other trials had found that HRT caused many other serious illnesses and diseases too, including a significantly increased the risk of dementia.

So during the 2000's, prescriptions for HRT treatment for the menopause were drastically reduced. The result was that breast cancer rates were significantly reduced. One result was that in the USA breast cancer rates fell by 12% in 2003 among women aged between 50 and 69, the most likely to be taking HRT.

Despite this, the drugs were never banned, despite the high probability of significant harm to the women who continued to take them. And now, NICE is trying to rehabilitate them!

It would appear that the new NICE guidelines have been written in the belief that it is possible to ignore this evidence, and encourage women passing through the menopause to take the drug. They actually call the new guidelines 'the Gold Standard'!

• HRT will still cause cancer, and all the other diseases it has been associated with.
• No-one taking HRT will be guaranteed that they won't suffer from one or more of these serious diseases.
• But despite this doctors are now expected to encourage women to take HRT.

One problem is that the pharmaceutical industry has never found an alternative to HRT. However much a woman is suffering from menopausal symptoms, the only treatment the conventional medical system has to offer her is this failed and dangerous drug.

Nor does NICE mention that women do have alternatives, outside conventional medicine, dominated as it is by harmful and dangerous drugs like HRT. For  many years, an increasing number of women are now looking towards Homeopathy as a safer, and more effective treatment for menopausal problems. For a comparison of conventional and homeopathic treatment of menopausal issues, go to this website.

So why does NICE not mention such alternatives to drug-based treatment? Why does their guidance fail to point menopausal women to non-conventional treatments? Would this not extent informed patient choice?

NICE are part of the conventional medical establishment. It is an organisation dominated by people with close links to the pharmaceutical companies. It seems to be intent on encouraging doctors and patients to take more and more drugs. Yesterday, for instance, I wrote a blog about their promotion of Statin drugs. So whilst NICE recognises drug and vaccine dangers it fails to highlight them, and discounts them.

HRT might cause cancer, heart problems, and dementia. But what the hell! Drugs are profitable. They are indeed, the 'gold standard' for the pharmaceutical industry. Homeopathy is not profitable, and using it will reduce those taking drugs. 

And women's health, it would appear, is not really that important at all to the conventional medical establishment!

POSTSCRIPT
It has now emerged (WDDTY 17th November 2015) that it was an influential study by a researcher who had been recruited by a major HRT manufacturer who persuaded NICE to relax their guidelines on using the drug for women. 

          "Her research helped influence the UK’s NICE (National Institute for Healthcare and Excellence) decision to relax their stand on HRT and to put the therapy back on the table as an option for menopausal women. But Dr Nachtigall didn’t reveal that she had been recruited by HRT manufacturer Wyeth in 1999 to put her name to an article that extolled the benefits of the therapy.  Her involvement was reviewed by a US Congress hearing in 2008.

So this is yet more evidence that 'medical science' does not protect patients, but favours pharmaceutical companies.


Postscript
7th March 2019
The "its dangerous, but keep taking it" message about pharmaceutical drugs continues. BBC News is always intent on selling pharmaceutical drugs of all descriptions on behalf of the drug companies.

However, in this article, "HRT. Women told don't be alarmed by Alzheimer's study" it manages to parrot, unquestioningly, the publicity of the conventional medical establishment. It mentions research by the BMJ on data taken from 170,000 women in Finland, over 14 years, that found a 9% to 17% increased risk for Alzheimer's, particularly in women taking HRT for more than 10 years.

So there is further evidence that HRT is a dangerous drug!

But the BBC is willing to dismiss it, reporting that "... HRT is an effective and safe treatment for most women with menopause symptoms and the risk is 'extremely low'."

And the BBC does not feel the need to mention that HRT causes not only dementia, but also cancer and heart problems, as outlined in this blog.

Does the BBC know that HRT causes breast cancer? They have known at least since 2003, as this article proves. Perhaps it's just a case of selective amnesia then!

 

Postscript

July 2022

So HRT was safe until the early 2000's: then it was so unsafe that research was stopped because these drugs were too dangerous; then new research in 2015 (financed by the pharmaceutical industry) 'proved' it was safe...... AND NOW "new evidence" is being considered that NICE guidelines might have to be renewed - because the drug is causing breast cancer.

• When will conventional medicine learn?
• When will patients learn that conventional medicine is not to be trusted?
  

Postscript

February 2025

And so the saga continues! (This information taken from WDDTY). 

Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden compared the health of 77,512 postmenopausal women taking HRT against 842,102 who weren’t on the drug.  Those given HRT were on one of the seven types of the drug: oral combined continuous, oral combined sequential, oral unopposed oestrogen, oral oestrogen with local progestin, tibolone, transdermal combined, or transdermal unopposed oestrogen. Most of the seven different forms of HRT increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, but one drug, tibolone, has been singled out as the most dangerous.

People taking sequential pill therapy double their risk of thromboembolism, or blood clot, while the risk rises by 57% for those on oestrogen-only pills and by 46% for those on transdermal combined drugs, which include gels, sprays and patches.

HRT. Reporting the DIEs *Disease Inducing Effects' of Pharma Drugs

Are we gradually shaming the BBC into reporting what they call the 'side effects' of conventional pharmaceutical drugs. Today, 13th February 2015, BBC News reported that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) increases the risk of Overian cancer.

The report is, at least, a breath of honesty through this 'public service broadcaster' who have failed for over a decade to engage in the Health Debate that is going on out here. But it is still quite inadequate, and it demonstrates the ongoing failure of the BBC to honour their duty to the public.

First, the report states that facts. The 'new' study has found that the increased risk of ovarian cancer means that 1 in 1000 women will contract the disease. But then it plays down the issue, both by what it reports, and what it does not report. It tells us that the risk is minimal, that 5 in 10 smokers will die of cancer - but doesn't tell us what relevance that has to the dangers of HRT! It does not tell us that it is well known, and accepted, that only 10% of side effects, or DIEs are ever reported - and so the incidence of Ovarian Cancer arising from HRT treatment is more likely to be 1 in 100 rather than 1 in 1000.

And so the 'Russian Roulette' of conventional medical practice continues!

Second, the BBC continues to use conventional medical doctors to provide them with their 'expert' advice' about drugs and vaccines. Even the BBC does not do this in many spheres. What is Tory economic policy? Ask a Tory spokesperson to give advice on this! What is HSBC Bank's policy on tax evasion? As a spokesperson from HSBC!

What does the BBC think a doctor, who has prescribed these drugs for decades, going to say about the continuing use of HRT?

Third, HRT has been prescribed to women for decades. Some 10 years ago, following a major study, it was found to cause 'unacceptably high' levels of both breast and cervical cancer. It has not been so widely prescribed as a result since that time.

BUT IT IS STILL BEING PRESCRIBED BY DOCTORS!

The BBC forgot to ask the simple question - WHY! Why can a drug that has been found to have such disastrous consequences for women's health still be prescribed?

Yet the BBC forgot to ask many more questions. For instance, what are the additional dangers of HRT for women. 1:1000 for Overian Cancer perhaps. But what are the additional risk factors for breast cancer? And the BBC do not even mention cervical cancer!

Fourth, the advice at the end of the article is, as usual for the BBC, is based on what a conventional medical spokesman has to say, namely, go on taking the drug, but be more careful! Be more aware!

Nor does the BBC ask the question: Is there a safer alternative treatment for 'he symptoms of the menopause? Well, there is, click here! But don't rely on the BBC to tell you about it!

The BBC, as a public service broadcaster, is failing to engage in an important health debate. In this it is perhaps no different to other mainstream media outlets in the UK. But these outlets are financially entwined with the pharmaceutical industry - no excuse if they believe they are part of a 'free press' in this country - but this is not an excuse the BBC can use for failing their licence fee payers.

And one last question. If BBC News is not telling us the whole truth about health issues, if they are totally failing to question, and hold to account the conventional medical establishment, why should anyone be confident that they do so in any other sphere of life?

The Menopause and Homeopathy

The Menopause is not a disease, it is a natural life-transition, but it is a condition that many women suffer from quite seriously. It can produce irregular, heavy or painful periods, and problems such as host flushes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings, concentration and memory problems, vaginal dryness, fatigue, depression, headaches, heart palpitations, loss of libido, weight gain - and much else.

Conventional medical treatment had, prior to 2007, been with Hormone Replacement Therapy drugs (HRT). Doctors had always told women how safe and effective this treatment was, but in 2002, the Women's Health Initiative began 'the largest and best designed federal studies of HRT'. These were stopped in 2007 when it was discovered that HRT significantly increased the risk of dying from cervical cancer, breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. There were also increase risk of dementia.


Were these findings a devastating or terminal blow for HRT? It would appear not! The NHS Choices website, even now, states that the main treatment for the Menopause "if the symptoms are severe" is non-other than HRT!

So the main treatment used for Menopausal symptoms within the NHS is a drug that has been found to have deadly consequences!

In fairness, NHS Choices also describes some other treatments, but these raise other serious issues for the health of women. One is the drug Tibolone - described as a synthetic steroid hormone drug that “acts in the same way” as HRT - which given HRT's record is not really re-assuring! 

However, it should be noted with some trepidation that Tibolone is a treatment that the FDA (the USA drug regulator) has refused to approve. 

However, in the UK (according to NHS Choices) it is a safe treatment, and “carries some small risks, including a small increased risk of breast cancer, cancer of the womb, and stroke”. Is that okay then? Does that re-assure you that this drug is safe? Why is it that a drug used in one country can be considered dangerous whilst the same drug in another country is safe, and only carries 'small risks'?

Clonidine is another drug used for the menopause, although apparently it was originally designed to treat high blood pressure “but has been found to reduce hot flushes and night sweats in some menopausal women”. However, as NHS Choices continues:

    “Clonidine can cause unpleasant side effects including dry mouth, drowsiness, depression, constipation and fluid retention”.

I remain uncertain why the side-effects of Clonidine are described as ‘unpleasant’ whilst those for Tibolone are considered to be just ‘small risks’.

I discovered this when I was preparing an article on my website, "Why Homeopathy?". I started my research believing that the use of HRT had been practically terminated, and was surprised to find that it was still the main treatment in use for the menopause by the Conventional Medical Establishment.

So, how much safer, and more effective is homeopathic treatment? Well it could hardly be more dangerous - and, of course, like all homeopathic treatment, it is very safe. And homeopathy has a number of key remedies that are known to treat menopausal symptoms successfully, and have been doing so for over 200 years. 

What is more, these remedies relate to the woman's individual experience of the menopause. Homeopathy does not treat women, or the menopause, as a single condition, with a single 'off-the-shelf' remedy for all. Homeopaths are trained to discover the symptoms experienced by the individual, and then to find a remedy that best matches those symptoms.

So, if you want to discover more information about the homeopathic treatment of the Menopause, click here, and look at my 'Why Homeopathy?' article.

It has to be the better option!

HRT - still alive and dangerous!

Despite knowing that HRT causes breast and ovarian cancers, and heart problems, doctors are apparently still prescribing this drug to women, and they are doing so at what WDDTY describe as 'dangerously high doses'.

HRT was a major money raiser for Big Pharma in the decades leading up to 2001, when research (rather belatedly) showed that it was carcinogenic and dangerous. The news about HRT, since then, has only got worse. But according to research undertaken at Stanford University this has not affected doctors.

This has been reported in Menopause, 24 November, 2010, and in WDDTY at

http://www.wddty.com/doctors-still-prescribing-high-dose-hrt-despite-health-alerts.html

As they ask, quite correctly, why is it that only doctor's don't seem to know about this? And why are patient's being put at risk by being prescribed a drug that is known to have such consequences to human health?

It would appear that the drug is still alive and dangerous, which is, of course, more than can be said for many of the unfortunate women who have taken the drug over the decades.

HRT increases risk of ovarian cancer by 29%

More bad news about HRT? Or just more of the same? Hormone replacement therapy causes not only heart disease and breast cancer, researchers have now discovered it increases the risk of ovarian cancer - by as much as 29%.

Researches from Oxford University have made this, the most recent discovery that this drug, once said to be 'entirely safe', is dangerous. They said that if you must take HRT, take it for only a limited time! 

I would suggest that the most sensible course of action was not to take it at all. Apparently, the risk was found to disappear once women actually stopped taking it.

Sources: 

* WDDTY 16th November 2010.

* Proceedings of the ninth annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, Philadelphia, November 7-10, 2010

How spin takes the science out of medicine

Conventional Medicine prides itself on being an "evidence-based" science. Yet most studies on which doctors rely have been created by marketing companies, who are working for Big Pharma.

So says the Magazine 'What doctors don't tell you', usually shortened to WDDTY, is excellent for doing just that - it tells you what you GP does not usually, or willingly tell you. This particular piece can be found at WDDTY Vol 21 No 8. Page 7-8, and examines why it is that for decades we have been led to believe in conventional medicine, and its ability to cure disease.

          "Around 90,000 so-called 'scientific' drug trials, published over the past 10 years in journals, have  been nothing more than public relations (PR) dressed up as research".


WDDTY calls this a scam, that makes a mockery of the idea that conventional medicine is 'scientific', and describes principally the activities of the drug company, Wyeth. Wyeth is being sued by 14,000 women who developed breast cancer after taking its HRT drug, Prempro. They have been forced to reveal 'secret' documents that have shown just how 'scientific' ConMed is.

Yet, as the report says, the Wyeth documents are "but the tip of the iceberg of a practice carried out by most drug companies".

I have written about this before, in The Failure of Conventional Medicine, or more specifically at Medical Science. The failure to protect, where the use of 'cheque-book science', 'ghost' writing, and much more, is described in some detail.

The fact is that ConMed drugs are no more than a confidence trick, a massive deception on patients who are not told the truth, but Government, the NHS, our doctors, and the mainstream media. The dangerous failure of a succession of pharmaceutical drugs, over the last 50-60 years in particular, demonstrates they have no 'evidence base' whatsoever.

The evidence that patients look for is that treatment is effective, and safe. Medical Science has proven itself to be totally ineffective in safeguarding our health; indeed, it has contributed to our ill-health. It is outcomes that are important:

I am ill; I am treated; I get better

It is homeopathy, and other natural CAM therapies, that have provided patients with good outcomes - and this is why so many people are turning to medical therapies that have such an evidence base.

Drug company lies, and HRT

More lies from Big Pharma, in order to sell dangerous, toxic drugs. This is just a sequel to the news, nine years ago, that HRT caused breast and cervical cancer. It has been reported at

Journal of the American Medical Association, 2010; 304: 1684-92


HRT was a major money winner for ConMed until research (rather late in the day, as usual) showed how dangerous it was. Sales dwindled (and breast cancer rates reduced with those dwindling sales), but Big Pharma remained upbeat! They had profits to generate, to hell with all those women!

They have tried to downplay the breast cancer risks for over 9 years by claiming that the cancers caused by the drug were not aggressive and were easily treated. Cancer? Easily treated? Presumably treated by more or their toxic drugs!


Now the same researchers have discovered that the claim is not true – HRT causes advanced and life-threatening breast cancer.

Now, there's a surprise! But at least it has enabled doctors to continue prescribing HRT to thousands of women, exposing them to the risk of developing an aggressive form of breast cancer. And, of course, Big Pharma has been able to pocket their ill-gotten profits from the distress, agony and death of patients.

What an obnoxious business.

Breast Cancer - a Conventional Medical triumph?

I have spent most of this morning listening to the BBC giving us news that breast cancer deaths have fallen in the UK, since the 1980's. Apparently French researchers have shown that the UK breast cancer rate has dropped by about one-third - "thanks to better care and speedier diagnosis".

Wonderful news - a triumph for ConMed?

Well, no, not really. What was never mentioned was that the cause of much breast cancer, certainly from the 1980's until a few years ago was that most women were given HRT for menopausal symptoms, and one result of this was a major epidemic of breast cancer. Then, as always happens, after decades of prescribing a dangerous treatment, ConMed discovered that it was dangerous, and stopped prescribing it.

So what is happening here? ConMed gives us a drug that causes an epidemic. Then withdraws it. Then claims that it has stopped an epidemic. It is marvellous propaganda, which the mainstream media is willing to pass on to us, without question! But it is an enormous lie!

It is a well-known technique however, which ConMed has often used. ConMed, for instance, claims to have been so successful it has led to increased longevity. That is, we are all living longer because of ConMed drugs! What they have actually done, of course, is to take as its baseline a time when death rates were higher than they have ever been (early and mid-19th century, when all the ravages of the agrarian and industrial revolutions had resulted in high population density, non-existant sanitation, poisonous water supply, squalid housing, poor diet, and dangerous working practices, et al), and compared it with today, when public health measures, and 150 year of social policy, have removed many of those lethal factors.

The History of Conventional Medicine

So whilst everyone is led to believe that ConMed has transformed our lives, it is merely taking credit for public health policies, for which it deserves little credit. ConMed has indeed reduced breast cancer - but only by being forced to withdraw one of its most profitable drugs

Dangerous Pharmaceutical Drugs

More proof about the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, the one's dispensed by the NHS to patients each and every day, continues to come through thick and fast. Rarely are these reported in the mainstream media, or come to the attention of the majority of people. Rarely are the disease- and death-inducing effects (DIEs) predicted in advance by medical science. The randomised controlled tests that very drug is put through prior to being given to patients seem to be entirely useless. It is only when patients are subjected to these drugs (on the basis that they will help them) that it is found they are harmful, and dangerous.

So here are just a few, the merest handful, of reports that have appeared on the internet over the last week or so about ConMed drugs.

* Huge rise in MRSA linked to childhood antibiotics.

* Seven (common) drugs that can kill children with a single pill (reported in the Dr Mercola website, and in ABC News 18 March 2010).

* HRT drugs shown to cause asthma (reported in Guardian blog, 8 February 2010, and in Natural News, 5 April 2010).

* Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs kill 2,500 a year in the UK (Natural News, quoting research published in Times On Line as long ago as 28 September 2006).

* Prostate cancer drug boosts heart disease risk (Natural News, 6 April 2010).

No wonder an increasing number of people are questioning whether taking pharmaceutical drugs is a sensible thing to do, and are looking for safer alternative therapies.

The bigger problem, though, is that despite the growing amount of evidence for the damage caused by conventional drugs, the NHS, and the wider health establishment, continues to deny the level of disease and death they are causing. Indeed, most patients do not understand the dangers and full implications of taking pharmaceutical drugs - because they are so often, and so frequently denied by the Department of Health, the NHS, the MHRA, and other conventional medical spokespersons.

This is why it is so absurd for the medical establishment (and the denialists who regularly contribute to this blog) to suggest that homeopathy, and other CAM therapies, are dangerous. At the moment, only those people who can afford to pay for homeopathy can get access to it. Those who cannot have to rely on conventional medicine, and they are paying a heavy price for it - through their health.