Dr Avrum Bluming

I know how to treat it based largely on trial and error studies so that now a newly diagnosed breast cancer carries a cure rate

of close to 95%.

I don't take breast cancer lightly.

It is still a disease I don't wish on anybody.

And I've spent a large portion of my career treating it

but it's very small in terms of a risk for a shortened lifespan.

And if the numbers don't even show that it increases the risk, then putting the black box warning and preventing women from taking it is a huge disservice.

And that's what Dr. Marty Macri, who is the FDA commissioner,

said when he said, and we therefore, after looking at all the data, are removing the black box warning on all estrogen-containing products, not just vaginal estrogen, which nobody has really challenged, but on all estrogen-containing products.

Bravo.

The next battle is

is what about breast cancer survivors, even as receptor positive breast cancer survivors?

And the short answer to that is, of course, we need more data, but there are 26 studies in the medical literature looking at what happens when breast cancer survivors are given hormones, including a

estrogen-receptive positive breast cancer survivors.

And of those 26 studies, 25 say there's no increased risk of recurrence.

In fact, four of the five prospective randomized studies say there was a decreased risk of recurrence.

And the one study that said there's an increased risk of recurrence, which, not surprisingly, is the one most quoted in the medical literature called the HABITS study for hormones after breast cancer.

Is it safe?

A study done in Sweden said there was no increased risk of distant recurrence, meaning metastatic tumor.

There was no increased risk of death.