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Wyeth's senior corporate counsel, Mark Lynch, also said that doctors and patients had been warned about the breast cancer link.

"That information had been on the Santa Monica plaintiffs' lawyer Gary M.

Paul disagrees.

"No one had ever indicated either to the doctors or to the women how much of an increase there was for breast cancer from using this medication," he said.

Regardless, news of the study was enough to persuade thousands of women to stop taking the drugs.

One was Fran Yeoman of Pacific Palisades.

The retired bookkeeper, 67, took the drugs for eight years to cope with insomnia and occasional hot flashes and said they were "wonderful." Yeoman swallowed her last pill in July 2002 when she had to temporarily stop all medications before hip replacement surgery.

Days after her surgery came news of the study linking the hormone drugs to health problems.

"I called my gynecologist and told her I didn't want to go back on it." Later that year Yeoman learned she had breast cancer, and she has since sued several drug companies.

After a lumpectomy and radiation treatment, Yeoman s...

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