Prempro

Today the number hovers around 6 million.

Even the name has changed.

Hormone replacement therapy been renamed hormone therapy - the word "replacement" has been dropped.

A change in practice?

Despite the scientific sea change of the past three years, it's unclear to what extent clinical practice has been altered, and whether doctors are prescribing the drugs inappropriately or softpedaling risks.

Some health advocates say they worry that the dangers of hormone therapy may be obscured by the fog of marketing or lingering doubts among doctors about the validity of the WHI's findings.

"There are clinicians who read the data and say the earth is still flat" or insist that their patients are different, said Amy Allina, program director of the National Women's Health Network, a nonprofit educational group located in Washington.

"I think a lot of doctors have been slow to change," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the Washington-based National Research Center for Women and Families.

How many women, she mused, are trading relatively short-term relief for a long-term threat like invasive breast cancer?

While women are not returning to the drugs in droves, there has been an uptick in their use to treat the more troublesome s...

Read more...