New menopause therapy guidance will harm women’s health, say campaigners

New official guidance on treating menopause will harm women’s health, experts, MPs and campaigners have warned.

Last month, new draft guidelines to GPs from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said that women experiencing hot flushes, night sweats, depression and sleep problems could be offered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) “alongside or as an alternative to” hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help reduce their menopause symptoms.

But critics have castigated the guidance, saying it belittled symptoms through misogynistic language, and women’s health would suffer as a result of failing to emphasise the benefits of HRT on bone and cardiovascular health as opposed to CBT.

In its response to the guidance, Mumsnet said NICE's recommendations used “patronising” and “offensive” language and would be “detrimental” to women’s health.

Justine Roberts, the founder and chief executive of Mumsnet, said: “Women already struggle to access the HRT they are entitled to. We hear daily from women in perimenopause and menopause who are battling against a toxic combination of entrenched misogyny, misinformation and lack of knowledge among GPs.

“Too often they are fobbed off or told they simply need to put up with severe physical and mental symptoms – often with life-changing effects.

“By emphasising the negative over the positive, failing to include information about the safest forms of HRT and placing CBT on a par with hormone replacement therapy, this guidance will worsen that struggle. It will make doctors more reluctant to prescribe HRT and women more fearful about asking for or accepting it.”

Carolyn Harris, the MP for Swansea East and the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on menopause, said the new guidance was “antiquated”, “naive” and “ill thought-out”.

”Talking can make you feel better, but it’s not going to take away the aches in your joints and it’s not going to change how you live your life,” she said. “Whatever a woman feels is what she needs to support her through the menopause should be readily and immediately available, and that’s not true currently [of HRT or CBT]."

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Source: The Guardian, 11 December 2023