Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) supplies from other nations may soon be brought into the UK, alleviating shortages impacting thousands of women.
After discussing the proposal with Health Secretary Sajid Javid on Thursday, manufacturers will meet with health officials this week, including new HRT tsar Madelaine McTernan, to determine which items they can buy from overseas.
According to the Mail on Sunday, countries in Europe and North America are not experiencing the same shortages as the United Kingdom, suggesting that they may have inventories to spare.
Theramex, a pharmaceutical company that provides multiple forms of HRT, was among those who met with Ms McTernan.
‘We talked about bringing in supplies from other countries, and that’s certainly something Theramex is willing to do,’ said manager Tina Backhouse, who was also present at last Thursday’s meeting.
On Monday, we’ll meet with the Department of Health to discuss this, and I believe other manufacturers will follow suit.’
Despite having a “strong stock” of Theramex’s drugs, such as Bijuva and FemSeven, Ms Backhouse said the company was hoping to purchase more from Poland.
According to experts, women on the Continent are more skeptical of HRT as a result of contentious research published in the early 2000s associating it to an increased risk of cancer. Recent research demonstrates that the risks are substantially fewer than previously thought.
According to Anne Gompel, a professor of gynecology in France, up to 40% of menopausal women used HRT before a contentious 2002 research, but now just 11% do, adding, “French women are terrified of the adverse effects.”
HRT is available over the counter in Spain, but because doctors are hesitant to recommend it, uptake is still low. Anna Paola Cavalieri, an Italian gynecologist, claimed comparable views existed in her country.
In the United States, a survey from 2021 indicated that only 4% of menopausal women used HRT, down from an estimated 25% in 2000.