March 14, 2013 -- Portland attorney Mike Williams is telling women with breast cancer who took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) they may have a legal claim against the manufacturers of certain synthetic hormone drugs. Williams and his firm, Williams Love O’Leary & Powers, are launching a multi-media campaign to get the word out to qualified breast cancer patients.
“It’s tragic and sad,” said Williams, “but doctors are prescribing older, designer hormone drugs that are known to cause breast cancer. For over a decade, there has been an equally effective but much safer alternative form of menopausal hormone therapy, approved by the FDA, but that information is not getting to consumers.”
Through a series of advertisements in print, on television and on the internet, Williams Love O’Leary & Powers is asking women with breast cancer who took HRT to step forward. Williams knows his firm can’t help women cope with their cancer, but he believes his firm can help them receive compensation to ease the ordeal.
Doctors prescribe hormone replacement therapy, in the form of estrogen and progesterone supplements, to women to help them deal with the initial and worst period of menopause, the hot flashes and night sweats. But there are a number of different types of HRT, and some of them are more dangerous than others. Williams said doctors do not always adequately warn their menopausal patients of the cancer risks of certain imitation hormones or inform their patients of the safer alternatives. The problem, he said, are the synthetic, chemically produced, counterfeit versions of the natural human hormone, progesterone. These “progestins” are synthetic imitations of the human hormone. When combined with estrogen, they increase the risk of breast cancer. Meanwhile, oral micronized progesterone (Prometrium® and its generic equivalents) is a safe, natural hormone drug, identical to human progesterone. It is approved by the FDA for use with estrogen to treat menopause symptoms and has been available for many years.
The menopausal drugs that cause breast cancer and which Williams believes should be pulled from the market include Activella, Femhrt, Combipatch and Climara Pro. These drugs are especially dangerous to the breast because they contain norethindrone acetate or levonorgestrel instead of human identical progesterone. Studies show that HRT with these forms of progestin pose the highest breast cancer risk compared to other HRT formulations.
To date, Williams Love O’Leary & Powers has litigated and settled hormone replacement therapy cases for more than 500 women. Williams’ law firm has a history of going to bat for consumers on a number of medical/legal fronts, including women injured by the Dalkon Shield IUD, silicone gel breast implants, Fen-Phen diet pills, ephedra dietary supplements, contaminated L-tryptophan tablets and other medical products.
