#482 The Estrogen Experiment

When the enormous experiment called the Women’s Health Initiative determined that postmenopausal women taking Prempro were at higher risk of heart disease, stroke and dementia, many doctors were astonished and shaken. They shouldn’t have been, according to Barbara Seaman. The “Helen Thomas of Hormones” has been writing about the Pill and menopause “hormone replacement therapy” for decades. Her new book offers an account of how estrogen became the most popular prescription in the pharmacy–and has now fallen from grace. Guests: Barbara Seaman, journalist and author of”The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth.” (Hyperion, 2003) Philip Corfman, MD, Consultant in Reproductive Health. Formerly Medical Officer at FDA and prior to that, Director of the Center for Population Research at NIH.