What really annoys me is when someone has breast cancer, and it is known that they also took HRT, the HRT always gets the blame. What about all those women who get breast cancer, but have never taken HRT? What gets the blame then? HRT and breast cancer are not mutually exclusive. The other thing I find interesting that there are still so many doctors and women who would rather take potent and addictive drugs, like ADs and benzos, for menopause rather than take a natural hormone. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Anyway, chances are she was going to get the cancer with or without the HRT. Even if the HRT did cause the cancer, I would be interested to know how bad her meno symptoms were and how long she actually took the HRT. As we often say, it always comes down to quality over quantity. If I knew that taking HRT was going to shorten my life by 10-20 years I would still take it because taking the HRT has made my life liveable, instead of suffering from insomnia, depression, anxiety and hot flashes. That in itself is worth taking HRT for.