Citation

Allina A, Ryan K. Am. J. Public Health 2013; 103(12): e4.

Affiliation

Amy Allina and Kate Ryan are with the National Women's Health Network, Washington, DC.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2013.301592

PMID

24134341

Abstract

We think the article by Sarrel et al.(1) falls far short of the Journal's standards. While the post hoc analysis of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) results that Sarrel et al. employ is a legitimate tool for hypothesis generation, the authors present their conclusions as far more certain than that and even go so far as to recommend that their findings should inform clinical counseling. Given this, we were not surprised to read in the Acknowledgments that the lead author had been a paid consultant for a company that makes an estrogen therapy patch. We were, however, shocked and disappointed to see the nation's leading public health journal provide a platform for such a misleading presentation of the current state of knowledge about use of estrogen therapy to prevent disease. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 17, 2013: e1. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301592).

Language: en