Chapter 6 Resources

Hot and Bothered About the Menopause Industry

Jennifer Gunter & Eric Topol discuss women’s health and recent actions by the US FDA.

This live recording addressing many current women’s health issues illustrates interaction between science, policy, propaganda, and marketing. The video is informative from beginning to end. From around the 40-minute mark on, Dr. Gunter emphasizes the impact of politics and misogyny on women’s health care.

Anthony R. Scialli, MD, is a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University School of Medicine and an adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. His presentation on menopause myths at the Physician Committee for Responsible Medicine’s 2025 International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine held August 14-16 is summarized in a Q and A session with Emma Bascom posted on Helio News. Dr. Scialli’s main message is that primary care providers can help patients by not treating menopause as a disease.

Here are two quotes from the article:

So, the first myth is that menopause is a disease, and a corollary to that is that we can treat it. We can give people hormones and that will cure the disease and will make them healthier. Both of those ideas are myths because they’re not true.

Estrogen will work for hot flashes and for vaginal dryness. . . By the way, a ton of other symptoms have been attributed in the popular press to menopause that have nothing to do with menopause; they’re simply aging, but menopause gets blamed. In any case, estrogen will work, but there are some adverse effects associated with estrogen — the most important to my patients being an increase in breast cancer diagnosis.

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Website: https://www.menstruationresearch.org

Ads for Premarin appearing in medical journals initially targeted doctors wanting to grow their practices. Later ads in women’s magazines played on women’s insecurities and normalized taking estrogen for life.

Although the pharmaceutical corporation that sells Premarin sponsored most ads, television ads for HRT promoted the idea of needing to “replace” estrogen and not necessarily a particular product . The list of potential health problems (should a woman fail to take HRT) in the second ad is truly frightening.