The Black Box Betrayal: How Kennedy’s HHS Won the War on Women This Week

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Who knew the champion of women, yes, even liberal women, would be RFK Jr.?!

On November 10, 2025, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. pulled the plug on the infamous “black box” warning from menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This was the label slapped on in 2003 after the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) sent the world into a hot-flash, manic panic by telling women their estrogen could kill them.

Doctors panicked, pharmacies dumped inventory, and 80 percent of menopausal women were told to tough it out.

For two decades. Two decades of accepting the symptoms of menopause…while also accepting the consequences of not treating menopause—like elevated instances of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and early death.  And the real kick in the pants is that the risk that launched this red scare–a bump in breast cancer diagnoses in women over the age of 63–wasn’t even relevant to the 45–55-year-olds who actually start HRT.

For 22 years, the government did not follow the science and instead let the lie ride.

The media screamed, “HORMONES CAUSE CANCER,” because the WHI reported 8 extra breast-cancer cases per 10,000 women per year who were taking estrogen plus progestin…and also over the age of 63. 8 per 10,000. In case, you were wondering during COVID, yes–the FDA and WHI have always sucked at math.

The fallout was instant: prescriptions cratered by 70-80%. Women tossed their pills and patches, doctors prescribed for all the symptoms, insurance developed the codes for the now chronic symptoms and an entire generation of “healers” learned to treat menopause like a disease you deserve for surviving your 40’s. Ya jerks.

Who Got Rich Allowing Women to Feel Poor?

• Osteoporosis Inc.–Estrogen protects bone. Remove it and you get brittle, breaking bones. All the hips. All the broken pelvises our mothers and grandmothers suffered with. This is that. Fosamax, Amgen…the bone health drug market went from $5 billion in 2002 to over $20 billion today.
• The Antidepressant Cartel–Insomnia, hot flashes, anxiety, and depression sent women to psychiatrists instead of gynecologists. Zoloft, Cymbalta, Paxil? Pfizer, Lilly, and GSK profited billions “treating” women by failing to treat women.
• Heart Burn–Early HRT cuts heart disease risk by up to 50%. But when women quit hormones, statin RXs exploded. Blood pressure, obesity drugs…Lipitor, oh my.
• The Medical Middleman–Hospitals. Sleep studies, fractures, and alternatives that never worked. One analysis pegged the cost of untreated menopause at $10-15 billion in avoidable, unnecessary spending since 2002.

No one gets a pass here.

Not GW Bush, but certainly not Obama or Biden. They are after all from the party of Women’s Health and Freedom, as opposed to the red-cloaked handmaidens of the patriarchal GOP. The left has campaigned on “women’s rights” for decades but had nothing to say about this–a central issue for ALL women, regardless of party or procreativity?

Women’s Unlikeliest Hero

RFK Jr., the inconvenient, anti-vaxx, environmental lawyer, made the FDA finally tell the truth–starting HRT helps more women than it hurts.  Two things happened on the same day: two bioidentical estrogen products were approved and within hours, osteoporosis and antidepressant stocks dipped. The guy the media branded “anti-science” just corrected 22 years of government-backed bad science. Y’all gonna march on Washington for that, ladies?? You will protest to keep a right to murder that most will never use but mums the word for an issue that 100% of women will face, should they live long enough.

Here is what the betrayal looks like over the years.

• 2002–WHI ends estrogen + progestin research
• 2002–Media reports the 26% increase in breast cancer which sounds scary but is really just 8 in 10,000 women
• 2003–FDA issues black box warning
• 2004–RE-ANALYSES of the WHI data. NOT further research–they just re-read the original report, showed no increased cancer in women under 60 or <10 years post menopause.
• 2006–Journal of American Medicine concludes “risks were small and benefits far more favorable for women to utilize HRT.”  That’s just 3 years later, friends.
• 2007–FDA has enough internal data to rescind the Black Box warning as JAMA formally spells out the “timing hypothesis” for early HRT treatment benefits.
• 2012–THE SMOKING GUN. A 10-year follow-up study completely overturned the 2002 report–Estrogen users had a LOWER risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and mortality in early starters.
• 2019–2023 Hey ladies, did you know that from 2019 on, HRT benefit is the common consensus, but no one told you? Doctors kept prescribing antidepressants, women kept falling and breaking bones…and they all knew.

It could have been corrected in 2007. In 2012, they had 10 years of data to warrant a total reversal. In 2016, there was no excuse. And from 2016 to November 10th, 2025? It was criminal.

Where were you on this Planned Parenthood? After all, you’re not abortion advocates–you’re advocates for reproductive healthcare. Ovaries feel pretty reproduce-y to me, yes?

LOL and Hakeem Jeffries ranting yesterday about how Dr. Oz is a joke and who should trust him… Anyone else not shocked that an HHS that thinks men and women are the same and interchangeable wasn’t too concerned with the reality that indeed, they are not?