[Leon Harris, Cnn Anchor:] A new medical poll is finding some surprisingly high levels of confusion about hormone replacement therapy, and about what women should do. This poll suggests that women and their doctors are not communicating very well on this issue. Joining us now with more on this is our medical news correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. What is the word?
[Elizabeth Cohen, Cnn Medical Correspondent:] Well, the word is do you remember in July, there was a big story about hormone replacement therapy? It has now been about five months, and it turns out that, well, people seem even more confused than, perhaps, they were before this report came out. Let's take a look at some of the numbers in a new poll about women and hormone replacement therapy. The poll asked, Have news reports about hormone replacement therapy made you feel more informed or more confused? Twenty-seven percent said more informed, 24 percent said more confused, and 39 percent said they feel the same. Now, it is very interesting, the next question was, Do you still believe hormone replacement therapy can prevent heart disease, stroke, and breast cancer? Thirty-two percent said yes, 29 percent said no, 31 percent were unsure, 9 percent said maybe. Now, let's keep those numbers up for a minute, because when you add them up, what it means is that two-thirds of these women got it wrong. Two-thirds of these women believe the hormone replacement therapy could help prevent heart disease, stroke, and breast cancer, and that is simply not true. In fact, what this study said that came out in July is that hormone replacement therapy does not help prevent those diseases. In fact, puts woman women at a slightly higher risk for having those diseases.
[Harris:] All right.
[Cohen:] So women just didn't get it right.
[Harris:] All right. So what is the right answer here? There's been so much talk about this since July, as you said here, and there's been so many questions that have been thrown out in the air, and discussion. What is the right answer?
[Cohen:] I am going to try to give you the bottom line right answer. The bottom line right answer is that every woman is different, and needs to figure it out on her own with the help of her doctor. If a woman is having such bad menopause symptoms that she can't take it anymore, she can't go to work, she can't sleep, she might want to consider taking these drugs for possibly a very limited period of time to help her get through it. She might say the slightly increased risk of getting breast cancer or heart disease or stroke is worth it to me because I am so miserable. However, another woman might say, You know what, the hot flashes aren't great, I am certainly not enjoying them, but I don't feel that it is worth the risk of taking these drugs just to alleviate what symptoms really aren't bad. So basically, it comes down to, How miserable are you with your menopause symptoms, and are you willing to take the risk of taking a drug that could lead to other diseases.
[Harris:] Whatever you do, ladies, talk to your doctor. Talk to your doctor first. OK, great. Thanks, Elizabeth. We've got to move on. Elizabeth Cohen, our medical news correspondent, thank you very much.