In July 2002, obstetrician-gynecologist JoAnn Pinkerton, MD, had just settled into her afternoon routine seeing patients at the University of Virginia Health Center when a nurse told her that several people had called asking if their hormone therapy was still safe. A new study was all over the news, and it threatened to shake the foundation of the only treatment known to tame the anxiety, hot flashes, and night sweats in pre- and postmenopausal women.
Dr. Pinkerton rushed home and turned on CNN. Her stomach dropped when she read the “breaking news” ticker scrolling across the screen: The government had halted a major Women’s Health Initiative study that was following roughly 17,000 menopausal women, ages 50 to 79, for five to eight years while they took hormone therapy. The investigators had found some terrifying statistics: a 29 percent increase in heart attacks, a 41 percent increase in strokes, and a small increased chance of breast cancer.
The headlines didn’t sound right. Dr. Pinkerton had been treating menopausal women for two decades—and founded the first menopause clinic at her university 15 years earlier. “I knew the results were exaggerated, because this wasn’t what we were seeing with the women we were taking care of,” she says.
