he news keeps getting worse about the value of hormone replacement therapies for postmenopausal women. Less than three months ago an international panel concluded that there was little evidence to support many of the presumed benefits of the treatments. Now federal health officials have halted a large study of hormone replacement therapy because the regimen used, a combination of estrogen and progestin, was doing more harm than good when taken for several years. The action has been met with shock and disbelief by many women and their doctors.

The danger to any individual woman appears very slight. But this discouraging saga offers a sobering lesson in how aggressive marketing by the drug industry and a fervent desire for medical miracles on the part of patients and doctors can propel use of a drug far beyond that justified by scientific data.

Hormone therapies were originally approved to treat the symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes and night sweats, a purpose for which they are unquestionably effective. But many women take them for years to enhance a feeling of well-being or in the belief they can help prevent some of the ailments of old age. But the federal study that has now been halted, a rigorously controlled trial involving more than 16,000 healthy women, has made it clear that prolonged use can be somewhat risky. The estrogen-progestin combination caused a slight increase in breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots, with the heart attack risk starting in the first year of treatment. This damage outweighed a small beneficial effect in reducing hip fractures and colon cancers.

No woman need panic over these findings. The scientific directors of the study stress that the drugs increased a woman's risk of contracting breast cancer — the finding of most concern — by less than a tenth of a percent per year, a tiny amount. But if the drugs are taken by millions of women over several years, the risk translates into tens of thousands of cases of breast cancer or cardiovascular disease, a clear public health concern.

The federal study has reached no judgment yet on the pluses and minuses of taking estrogen alone, the course of therapy for eight million American women who have had hysterectomies. That portion of the trial will continue.

The emerging medical consensus seems to be that long-term use of the estrogen-progestin therapy is questionable, particularly for purposes where alternative drugs are available, such as the prevention of osteoporosis and hip fractures. But short-term use to ease the symptoms of menopause, a purpose not tested in the aborted federal study, may well remain justified. That would return the combination drug to the narrow purpose it originally had — before the marketing juggernaut and professional word of mouth, buttressed by scientific studies that are now shown to be wrong, propelled it to superstar status.

The promotional blitz over the years has made hormone replacement therapy sound like a virtual fountain of youth. As Melody Petersen and Gina Kolata reported in yesterday's Times, the drug company Wyeth financed a best-selling 1966 book, "Feminine Forever," that kicked off the promotional boom for estrogen as a hormone that could keep women young, healthy and attractive, according to the author's son. More recently, Lauren Hutton, the supermodel featured in Wyeth ads, told Parade magazine that estrogen is "good for your moods, it's good for your skin," making it sound like a beauty treatment and anti-aging elixir.

One bright spot at this time when desperate drug companies are hyping their products beyond reason — and when the corporate and financial worlds seem enmeshed in shady dealings — was the impeccable integrity of this well-designed scientific study. The findings could not have been pleasing to Wyeth, the manufacturer of the drug combination being tested, whose shares plunged sharply on the news. But the National Institutes of Health and the researchers themselves had no qualms about terminating the study and announcing the results for the benefit of patients and their doctors. If only the business world could be so forthcoming.