British Menopause Society 22nd annual conference, Winchester 2012.

Eddie Morris, President elect of the BMS, opened the conference by outlining the recent history of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), 10 years since the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) report was first published. He reflected on the devastating effect this and other publications at this time had on HRT prescribing and the needless decade of suffering that many women have endured as a result. Now 10 years on the findings of the study have been largely discredited and he referred to a recent critique by Shapiro (JFPRHC 2012) and a comprehensive review of subsequent research in Climacteric (June 2012). Currently, around 10 million women in UK live without estrogen and Eddie stressed the importance of providing appropriate choices and information for these women to improve their health and quality of life in later years.