Dr. Rachel Rubin

To be able to help with the guidelines for genitourinary syndrome of menopause.

But there was pushback.

Right.

Pushed back from institutions, pushed back from individuals.

Why do you think that was?

I mean, those labels never should have been there.

The science wasn't sciencing.

OK, so as your listeners know, the Women's Health Initiative comes out in the early 2000s.

There's a press conference that said hormones are going to kill you.

They're going to cause cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.

And there's a press conference and everyone threw their hormones in the garbage.

With that press conference, the FDA put a warning label on.

There was no advisory committee.

There was no group of experts that came and read the paper and highlighted it and said, wait a minute, the data says this, so the label should say that.

There was no consensus.

They just, poof, put a label on that said all hormone products cause stroke, blood clots, heart attack, probable dementia, and cancer, okay?

And that has been the case for 20 years.

Even that study published this year that below 70, there was no statistically significant increase in stroke or blood clots or heart attacks below 70.

Below 70.

So the data that the box was based on never actually really said what the box said.