Describing risks in terms of its effects on populations – for example, the million women taking HRT – is sensible for public health discussion but is utterly irrelevant to the individual decision a woman has to make. If discussing a treatment choice with an individual woman, it appears to be a manipulative framing of the risks.

Picking on a single adverse event, even one as important as cancer, is no basis for risk communication and again seems a manipulative form of communication.

In a complex decision, such as whether to take HRT, in which a woman’s feelings about her symptoms are so important, the potential harms and benefits to the woman should be communicated in a balanced and uniform way. The form of communication should be appropriate to her level of numeracy and wish to engage with the evidence.

She can then make up her own mind, based on principles of shared care and informed choice. Of course, if she wants to defer to doctorial advice, that is completely fine.