The numbers are in, and after a significant drop in breast cancer numbers in 2003 the numbers leveled off in 2004. We now know that the 2003 drop was definitely due to doctors taking their patients off Premarin and Prempro, the female estrogen drugs made from pregnant mare’s urine.
The huge Women’s Health Initiative study that suggested the drug was dangerous came after 30 years of assuming safety, obviously a serious mistaken assumption. Estrogen positive cancers in 2003 fell almost 15% in the age group of 50 to 69, the age group of women most likely to be on these medications. Over the course of 30 years that amounts to hundreds of thousands of lives lost because of a pharmaceutical company, once again not doing adequate research to determine safety.
Heart, stroke and ovarian cancer risks also declined, but nothing like the breast cancer risk. Bio-identical hormones are considered to be safer, but caution is needed where these types of popular medications are also prescribed quite cavalierly.