Menopause, Misinformation, and the Oprah Effect

Why Oprah Winfrey shouldn't be your menopause guide

Oprah Winfrey with noted antivaxxer and anti-science advocate, Christiane Northrup, in 2015. Northrup was, at the time, a known anti-vaxxer who spouted forced-birth talking points .

Do you think that “bioidentical” hormones in menopause means a superior or safer product? It doesn’t, but thanks to Oprah, millions of people do, and because of her, the predatory industry of compounding hormones got a significant boost. You couldn’t pay for that kind of free advertising.

(If you want the facts on what bioidentical hormones are and are not, please check out this previous post of mine.)

So when I heard that Oprah Winfrey had a new episode on menopause, I felt my soul leave my body, and not in a good way. My very valid concern was this will yet again spawn the need for all kinds of additional debunking as several of the guests are menopause wellness entrepreneurs and, according to the LA Times, the show will discuss a new, unique estrogen to reduce brain fog and prevent dementia. Spoiler alert, it isn’t new and it’s yet another compounded hormone, and no clinical trials support its use for this indication.

Considering the United States is in a medical disinformation epidemic, AND we have a menopause gold rush with celebrities, medical professionals, and influencers all trying to cash in, this is not a good time for Winfrey, someone with an extensive track record of mangling medical topics, including menopause, to enter the fray.

Oprah Winfrey’s Lack of Credibility in Handling Medical Topics

Oprah Winfrey's long history of promoting a literal carnival of grifters while never acknowledging the harm she has caused even after the evidence was clear, should disqualify her from ever broaching a medical topic.

I will not go through the complete house of horrors here, but I highly recommend the podcast Behind the Bastards, which did a six-part series on Oprah. Yes, she has platformed so many awful people that they needed more episodes for her than any previous bastard they have discussed.

Here is a short list:

• Dr. Oz, who went on to become one of the biggest TV shills of all time, a Fox guest with possibly the longest list of anyone of promoting medical scams and disinformation in the name of profit and attention.

• John of God, a psychic faith healer who could do “visible” and “invisible” surgery, who advised his pilgrims to stop their medications and traditional medical care. Instead they were instructed to buy special, white clothes in the town he largely controlled as well his herbal medicine. He is currently serving over 118 years in prison for multiple sexual assaults.

• Jenny McCarthy, noted anti-vaxxer. Not sure that she needs more of an introduction than that.

• Marianne Williamson, a fat shammer, and all-around miracle grifter. Here’s a couple of notable quotes, “Overeating is an act of hysteria, and meditation is the most powerful antidote to hysteria" (page 196) and “Modesty is not just some old-fashioned we-don't-need-this-anymore value; it is a spiritual energy that dignifies and protects female sexuality from abuse by men and misuse by women” (page 61) from A Course in Weight Loss. Niiiiice.

• Elevating “The Secret,” this is the “if you just wish it, you will get it” mumbo jumbo that blames you for the bad things that happen to you. I personally believe that billionaires like this kind of claptrap because they feel they got to where they are by just working hard and praying, as opposed to making their money by harming and or exploiting people.

• James Arthur Ray became a self-help guru because Oprah heard him read some of the audio for The Secret and thought he had ideas. I know! Or really, I don't know. Anyway, he had a sweat lodge that killed two people from heat exhaustion. We heard on the Behind the Bastards podcast that Kirby Anne Brown, who was 38 when the died, sought Ray out specifically because she saw him on Oprah.

• Dr. Christiane Northrup, who you can read all about here in a previous post. In her first book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, she wrote that AIDS is “a consequence of a large-scale breakdown in human immunity, resulting from such factors as the pollution in the air and water, soil depletion, poor nutrition, and generations of sexual repression.” And people can reverse “their HIV status to negative” with the “healing power of nature and love.” She states she stopped doing abortions because she was “tired of performing repeat abortions on women who came back year after year for the procedure” and preferred instead to help “women understand their sexuality and their need for self respect and self esteem.” According to Northrup, women with cervical cancer are more likely to have “poor sexual adjustment, low incidence of orgasm during sexual intercourse, and a dislike of sexual intercourse amounting to an actual aversion.” And let’s not forget her antisemitic and Islamophobic musings about circumcised men being more likely to rape. Northrup went on to appear on Oprah at least 12 times, although almost all mention of her being associated with the show has been scrubbed from the Internet. Imagine thinking it is a good and worthy thing to elevate this woman?

I don’t have Dr. Phil on this list because I’m not sure if he descended into full grifter-dom until he got his show. I am only holding Winfrey responsible for people who a reasonable, ethical person would think, “This is kind of suspect, maybe I shouldn’t attach my credibility to this person and then give them the biggest megaphone in the world. “ You know, as Peter Parker’s uncle would say, with great power comes great responsibility.

It seems that interviews with Oprah Winfrey were more about getting attention and driving viewers, and the crazier the story the better. And while that might be fine for fads or fashion, when it comes to medical topics, people can get hurt by trying unsafe alternative therapies and or by being convinced to turn away from quality care.

Every single medical grifter I mentioned above should have given Winfrey’s producer’s pause either initially or after they had been on the show the first time. Oz was bringing his wife into the operating room to do Reiki to help his surgical outcomes. If her producers had asked any other heart surgeon, I can almost guarantee they would have said that’s bat shit crazy. But say you give that pass or assume she didn’t know about his wife and the Reiki. How about this, which she definitely knew about because at one point Oz was on her show lending his credibility to John of God. A real surgeon promoting a psychic surgeon? No alarm bells about his decision making there, eh? No, because I’m guessing his approval meant John of God was even more legitimate and that was better for ratings. For the Oprah apologists out there, sorry, but this isn’t a case of hindsight is 20/20. This is a case of stuff that was all bat shit crazy at the time it happened.

Let me contrast this with my approach. When people call me to be on their podcast, I do my best to look them up. If they are associated with harmful things, like the anti vaccine movement, or they sell supplements, I decline. For example, I declined being on Dave Asprey’s podcast several years ago because he is an anti vaxxer who sprouts all kinds of medically harmful content and I did not want to lend him my credibility, never mind sit in the same room as him. Not all doctors make those same choices, likely because his audience is large and probably buy diet books and supplements, so that might appeal to some medical entrepreneurs, but I am not interested in that kind of deal with the devil. If my massive team of just me (with an assist by my husband) can do a cursory check into people’s background, surely the team at the Oprah Winfrey show could have. But it’s clear that the wilder the claims and more against actual science the commentary, the better the ratings for many of her “medical” shows.

I mean, Winfrey once interviewed a woman who claimed to be part of a sect of Jews who have been sacrificing babies and eating them since the 1700s. With records!

No, really. Watch this clip.

This means either Winfrey’s producers believed this woman’s story, but they did not immediately call the police, or they knew it was completely fabricated and put her on anyway. Regardless, the ethical next step in either scenario is not to put her on camera and elevate lies about blood libel to millions of people. So when I say most billionaires don’t make their money ethically, this is a classic example.

Did Winfrey have some good medical shows? Maybe, but say she had 30 good shows, but also 30 awful ones that promoted harmful charlatans, the 30 good shows do not erase the harm caused by the bad ones, that’s not how it works! I mean, If I punch you 30 times and give you 30 cakes, I’ve still punched you 30 times.

Winfrey’s Previous Big Menopause Show

While her previous handling of medical topics should be enough to give anyone pause about her handling of menopause, she has an terrible track record covering menopause, by elevated the actress Suzanne Somers and Northrup. The false belief that bioidentical means more natural, or safer or better had been simmering in the underbelly of alternative medicine since the 1980s, but didn’t really explode until Somers got into the act. Suzanne Somers, the actress and celebrity endorser of fitness equipment and author of books such as Eat, Cheat and Melt the Fat Away published her first book on hormones in 2004, The Sexy Years: The Hormone Connection. Sommers pushed the concern of menopause as the worst thing in the world that a woman could experience and through the miracle of bioidentical hormones, which according to Sommers was 100% safe, a woman could be fabulous, fit, and sexy.

While Sommers definitely got some traction with her books, her misinformation about bioidentical hormones didn’t go viral, back before being viral was even a thing, until Winfrey stepped into the picture. Winfrey devoted two episodes to menopause hormone therapy in January 2009, one where she interviewed Robin McGraw (wife of Dr. Phil) and 2 weeks later with Suzanne Somers. Dr. Christianne Northrup, a long time devotee of bioidentical hormones, was included as the medical voice of reason, seated at the table with Winfrey and Somers. Dr. Lauren Streicher, an OB/GYN and member of the Menopause Society and the only true expert in the room was invited, but was forced to in the audience as a lesser participant. Winfrey held court on stage with Northrup and Somers.

The information presented by Somers was largely medically incorrect and went unchallenged by Northrup. The doses and regimen used by Sommers were extremely high and potentially dangerous and not what any qualified physician would recommend except, she was on TV, blessed by Oprah and recommending other women do the same. According to Somers, this was the regimen recommended by her own doctor, Dr. Prudence Hall. The fact that Suzanne Somers developed breast cancer as well as precancer of the uterus while taking her bioidentical hormones regimen was conveniently never even mentioned.

It’s no wonder Somers developed precancer of the uterus, she was using topical progesterone cream, which is ineffective at protecting the uterus and hence makes the estrogen unsafe for women with a uterus. This was never pointed out, as Dr Streicher was never given the opportunity to correct the misinformation from her seat in the audience.

Every misogynistic trope about hormones was successfully rebranded by Somers and Winfrey as feminism and the absence of medical evidence and promotion of taking unstudied hormone regimens was apparently the way to go about advocating for oneself. Note that I prescribe hormone to my patients that are studied and safe, and then there’s what Somers was talking about, unstudied and unsafe.

Look at the Google trends for the term, “bioidentical hormones,” below. Notice the three biggest spikes, which are in 2004, 2006, and 2009. The massive January 2009 spike, the largest ever to date (we’ll see what happens tomorrow) coincides with Somers’ appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The other two, smaller spikes, correspond with the release of her books The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection--The Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men (March 2004) and Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones (October 2006). This is perhaps the clearest demonstration of the impact of celebrity culture, and Oprah has significantly contributed to misleading two generations of women about menopause and counting.

If you are confused about bioidentical hormones, you can thank Oprah Winfrey.

As for Somers’ compelling research? Her personal doctor, Dr. Prudence Hall, who also wrote the foreword for Sommers’ 2013 book, I’m Too Young for This!, was investigated by the Medical Board of California and was placed on probation from August 2018 to August 2022 related to her “gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, and failure to maintain adequate and accurate medical records in the care and treatment of two patients.”

And Dr. Northrup? She is currently busy promoting her anti-vaccine beliefs and is also now a full on QAnon believer. For those not familiar with QAnon, it is a fascist, antisemitic, apocalyptic conspiracy theory that believes, among other things, that Satan-worshiping pedophiles who operate child sex trafficking rings are conspiring against President Donald Trump.

I asked Dr. Streicher about her experience on the Oprah Winfrey show, and she told me:

Suzanne Somers, of Thigh Master fame, was the first high profile celebrity to dole out menopause advice. She was invited on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote her bestselling book, The Sexy Years, and sat next to Oprah on the stage. I was relegated to the audience to be called on to respond to Susanne’s unsubstantiated statements about the safety and efficacy of compounded hormone therapy. Suzanne Somers, with her dubious experts and her pseudoscience was the acknowledged “expert”. As a board certified, academic physician, I was “the enemy” and put in the position of defending evidence-based medicine. I always hoped that one day I would have the opportunity to sit on the stage and give women accurate, scientifically proven information. It is only when women are given good information that they can make good choices.

So we’re supposed to trust that Winfrey will get it right this time?

By the way, Dr. Streicher has a great substack that you can find here.

Fool Me Once…

Oprah Winfrey could have almost any expert on a menopause show. If I were picking my rock stars of menopause wish list for her, I’d have pulled from this bench: Dr. Nanette Santoro, Dr. Susan Davis, Dr. Sherri-Ann Burnett Bowie, Dr. Pauline Maki, Dr. Stephanie Faubioun, Dr. Wen Shen, Dr. Lisa Larkin, and Omisade Burney-Scott (creator of the Black Girl’s Guide to menopause). You may have never heard of some of these amazing women, but they are amazing health care providers, researchers, and women’s advocates.

Winfrey’s guest list guests include celebrities and doctors with products and coaching services to sell. Naomi Watts has Stripes, a line of products to “push menopause symptoms out of the way & get back to living your best life.” The products are “clinically tested,” which means nothing. And while Halle Berry had been active politically to help raise awareness for funding, she also has respin, which appears to be a menopause coaching service that is $150 a month if you sign up for 3 months, but $1200 if you pay a year in advance. Dr. Mary Claire Haver had a cadre of over priced supplements and is not transparent about third-party verification for safety (and transparency here is kind of the point of the testing) and they are not recommended by ConsumerLabs.com. Her turmeric supplement appears to be designed based primarily on rat studies. Then of course there is the compounded estrogen product that the LA Times has reported will be featured by Dr. Voskuhl, who is the inventor and features heavily on the product website. In the LA Times she claims it is a “unique estrogen, and it's designed to be safer,” and is supposedly the answer for brain fog. There are no randomized trials of estriol or any estrogen for brain fog in peri menopausal or post menopausal women. I’ll dive more into this product this week. Get your bingo card ready so you can see how many people with a product or service mention them on the show (Winfrey mentioning them counts)

Will some of the content be accurate? Sure. But I will bet money on that being mixed up with misinformation and disinformation, so how is someone who is not an expert supposed to separate fact from fiction? Given Winfrey’s past record and apparent love of pseudoscience, can we trust her to ask the right questions?

Oprah Winfrey has never reckoned with the damage she’s done in health in the name of entertainment, including the singular damage she has done to menopause, nor has she acknowledged that many women have likely been misled by the medical grifters she has amplified. It’s a lot of gall to sweep that history under the rug as if it never happened. And now we’re supposed to trust her with menopause, especially given the rise of menopause entrepreneurs and her history of elevating the fantastical over fact? Will she finally prioritize science over spectacle?

As science doesn’t make good sound bites, I’m not hopeful.