The Truth About Estrogen: What the Women's Health Initiative Got Wrong with Dr. Avrum Bluming & Dr. Carol Tavris

unPAUSED with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Mary Claire Media, LLC

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if the biggest health study in history got it wrong and millions of women paid the price? In this premiere episode of “unPAUSED," Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Avrum Bluming, medical oncologist and former senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Carol Tavris, social psychologist and co-authors of the life-changing book: Estrogen Matters. In this conversation, they dismantle the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study that terrified an entire generation of women away from hormone therapy and reveal why the fear was based on misinterpreted data, flawed conclusions, and a refusal to correct the record. You'll learn why estrogen actually decreases breast cancer risk, how heart disease kills seven times more women than breast cancer, and why the "lowest dose of estrogen for the shortest time" advice has no scientific backing. This conversation will inform you and empower you to demand better from your own healthcare provider. If you've ever been told hormone therapy is too dangerous, that your symptoms are "just aging," or that you need to accept suffering in silence, this episode of “unPAUSED” is for you. Dr. Haver, Dr. Bluming, and Dr. Tavris give you the science, the tools, and the truth you need to hear including a free informed consent form and quality of life questionnaire you can bring to your doctor's office today. Guest links: Estrogen Matters Estrogen Matters (Instagram) Articles Long-Term (≥5-Year) Remission and Survival After Treatment With Ciltacabtagene Autoleucel in CARTITUDE-1 Patients With Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma (Journal of Clinical Oncology) Early Exposure to Medicine Inspired Committed Careers in Cancer Care (Yale School of Medicine) Estrogen and cognitive functioning in women: lessons we have learned (Behavioral Neuroscience) Uncertainty about Postmenopausal Estrogen — Time for Action, Not Debate (New England Journal of Medicine) Estrogens for Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease: Putting the Brakes on the Bandwagon (Circulation) Effects of estrogen plus progestin on health-related quality of life (New England Journal of Medicine) Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Breast Cancer: What is the Evidence from Randomized Trials? (Climacteric) Breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy: collaborative reanalysis of data from 51 epidemiological studies of 52,705 women with breast cancer and 108,411 women without breast cancer. Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer (Lancet) Lung Cancer Mortality Higher in Women Who Used Combination Hormone Therapy (JAMA) Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate and Risk of Meningioma in the US (JAMA Neurology) The Mortality Toll of Estrogen Avoidance: An Analysis of Excess Deaths Among Hysterectomized Women Aged 50 to 59 Years (American Journal of Public Health) “The New Perimenopause,”⁠ by Dr. Mary Claire Haver ⁠"The New Menopause"⁠ by Dr. Mary Claire Haver Other Resources Survival Rates for Breast Cancer (American Cancer Society) Eric P. Winer elected ASCO President for term starting in June 2022 (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) ASCO Past Presidents (American Society of Clinical Oncology) ASCO Overview (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Eric Winer, MD (Yale School of Medicine) About WHI (Women’s Health Initiative) The Facts about Women and Heart Disease (American Heart Association) The Million Women Study (Oxford Population Health) The Million Women Study: design and characteristics of the study population (Breast Cancer Research) Philip Sarrel (LinkedIn) QofL Questionnaire Informed Consent Form. No Prior Breast Cancer. How Do you Feel Books “Estrogen Matters,” by Dr. Carol Tavris and Dr. Avrum Bluming“Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me),” by Dr. Carol Tavris and Dr. Elliot Aronson For full show notes, please click here. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When my patients come to me in clinic, it's number one to put out the fire, get them to a functional status again.
0:05.5	Then the conversation about the next 30 years begins.
0:08.6	When a woman either with a history of breast cancer or with no history of breast cancer asks for estrogen,
0:15.7	she is often told, I don't want to talk about it. That's not open for discussion. And if you insist, you'll
0:22.6	have to find a different doctor. To refuse to discuss it in today's world is no longer acceptable.
0:29.9	Men on social media squawking about how they want to live to 120. No woman, I know, wants to live
0:36.3	that long. She just wants to stay out of a nursing home and to maintain her independence.
0:48.6	The views and opinions expressed on unpaused are those of the talent and guests alone,
0:53.5	and are provided for informational
0:55.0	and entertainment purposes. No part of this podcast or any related materials are intended to be a
1:01.1	substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. I'll never forget the first time
1:08.8	I heard Dr. Avram Blooming and Dr. Carol Tavers speak.
1:12.6	It was at my very first menopause conference in Santa Monica.
1:16.0	I had been invited to speak about nutrition and menopause based on my work with the Galveston Diet.
1:21.3	They were being interviewed by Dr. Sharon Malone, a nationally recognized OBGYN and menopause expert. And as I sat in the audience,
1:30.9	I listened to them dismantle the Women's Health Initiative. They exposed the flaws in its design,
1:36.7	the way the findings were misrepresented, and the truth. Estrogen was not the villain I had been
1:42.8	taught it was. I felt tears streaming down my face. It was a
1:47.1	lightning bolt moment. I was shocked, ashamed, furious. Not because I had missed something, but because
1:55.0	this information had never been given to me. Even as a board certified OBGYN-GYN, through my years of recertification, this
2:03.2	information was nowhere to be found. And that realization cut me to the core. If this could blindside me
2:10.2	as a trained OB-GYN, imagine what it had done to millions of women. My field is supposed to be the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mary Claire Media, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Mary Claire Media, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.