The Estrogen Elixir: A History of Hormone Replacement Therapy in America

As the other reviewers describe, this book has sociological aspects of HRT. This book really tells us that HRT is the most important agent involving major social and medical issues:- FDA's approval without scientific rigidity during 1930s and 1940s- heavy involvement of pharmaceutical industry in medicine- ethics of human studies involving elderly subjects or prisoners without informed consents.- bias in belief-based advocacy by medical doctors- conflict of interest in relation to chemical and drug industries- social psychology of fear against aging after population had achieved average longevity longer than 60 years.- epidemiologic approach to study relatively-rare cancers such as endometrial cancer- difficulty in dealing with a single agent related to multiple diseases; cancer, heart diseases, bone diseases- difference between randomized controlled trial and observational studiesThis book presets that these public health controversies have literally grown with HRT. In other words, HRT history can provide very important implications for public health in US. With respect to this, anyone who is interested in social aspects of medicine, not necessarily in HRT or menopause, will love this book.

An excellent review of the history of a remarkably controversial topic.

It seems incomprehensible that a book about estrogen and hormone replacement therapy could be written in 2009 and have not a single instance within its text of the words "transgender" and "transsexual", until you realise that the book was published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Johns Hopkins University is, of course, the home of notoriously anti-trans psychiatrist and advisor to the Vatican on human sexuality, Paul McHugh, who was responsible for the closure of the Johns Hopkins clinic that pioneered transgender and transsexual healthcare in the United States from 1965 to 1979.Although McHugh was replaced as Chair of Psychiatry in 2001, he continued to wield enormous influence over the institution, particularly so with the backing of the Roman Catholic Church's propaganda machine, and was instrumental in perpetuating the ban on funding for transgender healthcare by the federal government, which came about in 1980 as a result of the sole recommendation of his fellow notoriously anti-trans Roman Catholic activist, Janice Raymond, author of the eye-rollingly hateful book, "The Transsexual Empire".Thankfully, the federal government rescinded that ban in 2014, and the Johns Hopkins community finally found the courage to repudiate McHugh's bias and reopen the Johns Hopkins Sex and Gender Clinic in 2017.

This book charts the history of estrogen throughout the years. It was interesting to learn about the pioneers of hormones and the desperate measures they employed. I would have given five stars but grew increasingly irritated by the author's attitude towards anyone who was not a hormone skeptic. Germaine Greer and Gail Sheehy both wrote books ehich were deservedly mentioned. Sheehy was described as shrill for her pro hormone stance. Greer was praised for her femminist views. What answer has femminisn for the suffering caused by menopause. In short continue suffering and use hocus pocus remedies. Hormone therapy should be available for those wonen who desire it and I felt that the book gave too much praise to these awful women who seek to force their views on others by restriction of choice.The early chapters are excellent - but do not expect anything positive about estrogen.