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he says, "We will soon regard making oestrogen the key ingredient in hormone replacement therapy as a major medical mistake."” Women must be able to make educated, informed choices about their bodies and their health treatment preferences. It's impossible to make important health deci- sions if fundamental facts are missing or misconstrued. It is also evident that the health care providers, whom we have come to rely upon, either have not received ade- quate, unbiased education themselves or have become imprisoned by their own arro- gant and narrow-minded points of view. It is really up to every woman to read, question, trust her natural instincts and learn about her own body. It is also essen- tial that a woman honour her own cyclic nature and intuitive wisdom. It is a wom- an's right to choose with dignity the best approach to her own health care. 0 would increase the chances of a woman developing a melanoma, the most lethal of all skin cancers. Hormones control the pig- mentation of our skin, and melanoma can- cer cells have oestrogen receptors which can make the growth of cancer more likely. Women taking HRT are at greater risk of developing melanomas than the average woman.” Dr Lee strongly believes that because of its many benefits, its great safety, and par- ticularly its ability to oppose the carcino- genic effects of oestrogens, natural proges- terone deserves far more attention and application than it is generally given in the prevention and care of women's health problems today. The long road we have been travelling over the past 35 years, that has encouraged and promoted the wide range of synthetic hormone products, is taking us to a deadly dead-end. The scare-tactic techniques and intimidation employed by doctors and pharmaceutical companies alike to use such products, often overriding a woman's better judgement, have pushed millions of women into using drugs that are unproven and unsafe. It is no surprise, therefore, that Dr Lee has issued an ominous warning when women whose surgery is done early on in their cycle during the oestrogen-dominant follicular phase.* The only known cause of endometrial cancer is unopposed oestrogen. Here again, the culprits are oestradiol and oestrone. Oestrogen supplements given to post-menopausal women for five years increase the risk of endometrial cancer six- fold, and longer-term use increases it fif- teenfold. In pre-menopausal women, endometrial cancer is extremely rare, exeept during the five to 10 years before menopause when oestrogen dominance is common.” Synthetic hormones are also linked to cervical cancer. The cells of the cervix are extremely hormone-sensitive. Levels of synthetic progestins, low enough not to alter the cells of the lining of the womb, have been shown to change the cells that line the cervix. Progestins dry up cervical secretions, and this may be part of the rea- son why cancer of the cervix develops quickly in the presence of cervical infec- tions.” It was predicted in the 1960s that the Pill Endnotes 1, Greer, Germaine, The Change, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1991. 2. Lee, John R., M.D., What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause, Warner Books, New York, 1996, pp. 67-68. 3. Op. cit., pp. 42-43. 70 ¢ NEXUS — Hormone Heresy: Oestrogen's Deadly Truth — Continued from page 69 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1996