The big news last week was that breast cancer rates are down. Apparently, after years of a steady climb, diagnoses of breast cancer went down by 7% in 2003. That’s great news, undoubtedly.

The papers have been making much of the fact that the dip is probably a result of women turning away from hormone replacement after a 2002 study linked the therapy to breast cancer. But there’s a lot more to this story. Yes, hormone replacement can be harmful—but only in women who take the hormones more than a decade after hitting menopause. In fact, as I reported last year, scientists say estrogen is good for women between the ages of 50 and 59 or those who’ve recently gone through menopause, and only increases breast cancer risk in older women.

That’s complicated—but isn’t that what these articles should do? Parse out the complicated news for their readers? Sadly, the results of the original study were so grossly misreported that it triggered panic among women, many of whom stopped taking hormones even when they needn’t have. The fact is that, apart from these hormones, there are no effective remedies for menopause symptoms. Case in point, a year-long study released today showed that the popular herbal supplement black cohosh did not relieve hot flashes and night sweats.

You know what did? Hormones.