[MonikaT]

I'm not advocating consuming nicotine, but certainly the majority of women (genetic and trans) who use tobacco do not get clots. Of those women who do have a problem with blood clots, I wonder how many smoke?

Uhm. I do not know who your sources are, but everything I've ever seen out of the medico's has been that nicotine increases the risks of blood clots and ambulisms and so forth.

I'm not saying nicotine doesn't increase the risk, but a statistically-significant increase does not mean an overwhelming increase. All it takes is the right-sized sample space, and a difference of 1% or even 0.5% can be statistically significant. Just because something increases one's risk by 1%, doesn't mean much. Is it an increased risk? Yes. Is it a great risk? No. Furthermore, there may be other factors that the researchers did not account for that could also be contributing to the risk. If a person knows what s/he is doing, anything can be proven with statistics. And all of that pre-supposes that the initial hypothesis to be proven is actually valid and the study was constructed correctly. Think about it. We know smoking increases the risk for certain cancers, yet most smokers do not get cancer. That's all I'm saying.

Furthermore, the medical community gets it wrong all the time. In the 50s and 60s, doctors claimed smoking was healthy. Remember how HRT during and after menopause was supposed to protect bone density and protect against heart disease? When they actually did a scientific study they cancelled the study because they were deathly wrong on the heart protective effects of estrogen. That's just one example. COX-II inhibitors are another example. The graveyards are filled with all kinds of victims of medical mistakes based on bad science and bad statistics. I'm just saying don't always believe everything just because it comes from the medical community. Remember, half of all doctors graduated in the lower half of their graduating class.