The Food and Drug Administration removed the black box warning from hormone replacement therapies late last year, and recently, the most insured type, the estrogen patch , has been in short supply amid a boom in the therapy’s popularity. “There’s been a surge in demand for the last two or three years where the utilization of transdermal estrogen has gone up significantly,” said Dr. Robert Kauffman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Texas Tech Physicians of Amarillo. While doctors and