| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 215.1 | same is true in mental health fields | TLE::D_CARROLL | The more you know the better it gets | Fri Jun 22 1990 16:28 | 18 |
| Women are also excluded from studies in *mental* health. In any expermiental
psych course, they will tell you that including women in the study will
"mess up" the results.
And if women are physically different from men, they are even more
psychologically different (since all physical differences results in
psychological differences, and there are also *extreme* differences in
their socialization/upbringing, even if you ignore contraversial *innate*
differences.) Women are more likely to suffer from neuroses, phobias,
and nervous breakdowns (don't ask me for references, this is from a
psych course for which I sold the book) than men - and yet the techniques
used to treat these women were all developped on men (and by) men.
And in those areas when mental health and physical health cross over
(eg: psychoneurology, psychopharmacology, psychosomatic illness, etc)
forget it.
D!
|
| 215.2 | Females are *such* trouble! ;-) | SPARKL::CICCOLINI | | Fri Jun 22 1990 16:45 | 14 |
| I spent two years in cardiovascular research. All my animals, (we used
pigs and dogs), were male. My protocols specifically stated the
requirement that they be male. Most of the studies on humans that
took place at that time were also done on only males. I can only
recall one "side-study" we did, on the effects of fish oil in lowering
blood cholesterol levels, (this was 1980 - we pioneered that
connection), in which they wanted the whole research team to
participate. I had my baseline bloods drawn and went home with a rack
of cod liver oil to drink at certain intervals over the weekend. I
couldn't even get through one day drinking that stuff and had to drop
out. But the point is that they "allowed" women in the study only because
they were desperate and wanted some down and dirty quick data so they
could apply for money to conduct the real study - in which only males
were used.
|
| 215.3 | One small counterexample | CLYPPR::FISHER | Dictionary is not. | Fri Jun 22 1990 16:55 | 9 |
| Well, it's not exclusive. I remember some research on the brain that
was being done by a fellow graduate student at UMASS. Ruth had to stop
for a while because her subject had kittens.
I know one counterexample does not make a case but this does remind of
a joke that I think was in -v2. Someone had fraternal twins, one had
a brain the other had a penis. :-)
ed
|
| 215.4 | hormones and mental illness | ICS::WALKER | BIENVENU CHEZ MOI | Fri Jun 22 1990 17:01 | 21 |
| I once read an abstract that fascinated me. It said that women with a
psychotic history had fewer psychotic episodes when they were pregnant
with a male fetus than with a female fetus. And since male fetuses
release male hormones (and female fetuses female hormones) it suggested
to me that there was a strong hormonal component to mental illness.
This must not have been followed up on however, because I've never read
more about it.
I also had a friend who had psychotic episodes only around her
menstrual period.
I used to transcribe reports that a male scientist would do on the
research proposals [from NIH] of other scientists. When he reviewed
the work of women, he would invariably start with favorable comments
and end very negatively. It would make a fascinating sociological
study to reverse the names [male to female and vice versa] on
scientific papers and research proposals and see how other scientists
rank them!
Briana
|
| 215.5 | | SPARKL::KOTTLER | | Fri Jun 22 1990 17:04 | 5 |
| re .4 -
Sounds like something that Dale Spender may have already done!
D.
|
| 215.6 | | SCARGO::CONNELL | Trepanation, I need it like a hole in the head | Fri Jun 22 1990 17:54 | 12 |
| The interesting (to me anyway) and coincedental thing is that just one
week before all this research stuff hit the news, my cardiologist as
much as admitted that to me. He was going over the research done on
high blood pressure and cholesterol level testing, giving me the
history and results of research done, and said that they just didn't
know about women and minorities as no real testing had been done on
women and minorities. I was somewhat shocked at this, but seeing as I'm
white and just entering middle age, the results worked for me. I do
think it is an outrage that testing isn't done on separate groups to
determine if the results would be significantly different .
Phil
|
| 215.8 | is this a rathole? | ICS::WALKER | BIENVENU CHEZ MOI | Mon Jun 25 1990 11:59 | 13 |
| Re .6:
It's interesting to me that, as a dietitian, *all* the women I've seen
with elevated cholesterol have reported being under unusual stress, and
in one case when the stress was alleviated, her cholesterol level also
fell (but she had also lost weight).
I've been very curious since then if research shows that elevated
cholesterol is *often* related to stress, in either men or women. Does
anyone have any knowledge about this?
Briana
|
| 215.9 | Half a reason | REGENT::BROOMHEAD | Don't panic -- yet. | Mon Jun 25 1990 12:21 | 14 |
| Mike,
I know that they use only one gender of rats in cancer research
because a pregnant rat cannot have cancer. (Instant remission.)
Therefore, mixed rats are not a possibility; you'd have to throw
out half your data. You can either use all male rats, or all female
rats, or both kinds, but in separate cages -- kept well apart.
Yet I seem to remember that they were using female rats in the
initial work that led to cis-platin, back in the late 1960's.
Ann B.
P.S. Rats are cheap; cost would never be the reason.
|
| 215.10 | | SPARKL::CICCOLINI | | Mon Jun 25 1990 12:59 | 80 |
| > Is there a problem with using only male rats in the experiments
> which use only male rats?
Only when they insist on applying the results to females without
studying whether or not the different factors in female physiology need
to be taken into consideration. Would you feel comfortable going to a
gynecologist for a prostate problem? This is pretty much the situation
women are expected to accept when they see a doctor for anything other
than specifically female problems.
> Probably, since way-back-when, the male animals were used because
> they weren't needed to produce offspring. You'd avoid killing or
> harming the female so she could still crank out animal models for
> the experminent.
Yeah but for quite a few years now, researchers have been able to buy
anything at all for study and still the male preference remains.
Tradition? That's used to rationalize a lot of outright sexism and
disinterest in women.
> What you end up with is a male animal model with centuries of
> data behind it, and a female animal model with a lot of unknowns.
That's true. But if you're using that as a reason why a male would be
a better subject, you're wrong. Each test group generally begins anew
where you have to establish their baselines before beginning. Basically,
you're creating a "before and after" situation which means you are es-
tablishing your own "before" and that could be done with either gender.
But even if you were right, that would still prove that the medical
community was satisfied with females having a lot of unknowns. Wouldn't
basic scientific curiousity, (the excuse they used for inventing the
hydrogen bomb, etc), cause at least some of them to zero in on the female
as being ripe for study specifically *because* of its many unknowns? Maybe
it would in a non-sexist society that was interested in women beyond their
potential for giving sexual pleasure to men. They spend more time studying
silicone implants than they do menopause. They can successfully remove
that "unsighly" fat from her thighs but they can't figure out why she feels
so awful just before her period.
> No, 13% goes to studying the health risks that are unique to women.
> Do you see the difference?
87% goes to studying the health risks that are, if you exclude data on
women, unique to men. Organs and disease processes that affect BOTH sexes
are using only the male model. Would you feel comfortable if they always
used only the female model instead? Or only a Haitan model? Or only
Laplanders?
Even if the 13% figure represented what you think it did, a balance would
mean that another 13% is going to studying the problems unique to men and
male organs. But far more than 13% goes to the study of prostate enlarge-
ment, testicular cancer and even male pattern baldness!
And how about sports medicine which has traditionally been ALL male and now
is still MOSTLY male? There's a huge chunk o' change going to that! I
did some work for Dr. Pappas, too - the sports med guy at UMASS. That's
currently a VERY sexy field and is highly funded. Breast cancer, though
one in 10 women will get it, generally gets the leftover funds and menopause,
although virtually every single woman will experience it, is even lower on
the scale than that.
> You gotta love an article that goes out of its way to misinform
> through plays on words.
I agree. But Ellen's article wasn't one such case.
> Neat. It's implied, then stated, though without proof or data
> of any kind.
There's plenty of proof and data in the article and in life. Funds are
distributed in actual, traceable dollars to actual researchers conducting
actual projects complete with hypotheses and protocol plans and published
results. Everything is right out there in black and white for anyone who
wants to take a look at it - like Ellen did.
I love a quote I read about how doctors are trained in medical school and
I'm sure many women can relate to having had more than one doctor with this
attitude. They are taught that "all women are hysterical, their complaints
imaginary and their diseases due to promiscuity." How's that for the
scientific detachment of these highly paid yahoos?
|
| 215.11 | | CADSE::MACKIN | It has our data and won't give it back! | Mon Jun 25 1990 14:25 | 10 |
| When I was doing cardiovascular research all of the rats we used were
males also; I never saw any rules about it, just that was all I was
given. I think all of the studies I read about were with male-only
subjects as well.
The reasoning was that the hormonal fluctuations in women made it very
difficult to study things like cholesterol utilization in a controlled
manner. In a lot of ways, though, I think that much of the reasoning
was a priori made up and no one really bothered to double check whether
or not the guesses were really accurate or not.
|
| 215.12 | FWIW | LOWELL::WAYLAY::GORDON | The Sexuality Police don't card anyone... | Mon Jun 25 1990 16:53 | 12 |
| I think I've mentioned this before, but when I took Intro Psych in
college we had to do "x" hours of playing subjects for the grad students
experiments. Studies involving alcohol consumption were limited to males
only.
The reason given was that in order to administer alcohol to a female,
she would first have to be given a pregnancy test so they could be sure
they were not endangering a fetus. I would imagine that the threat of
lawsuit had something to do with that as well.
--D
|
| 215.13 | | SPARKL::CICCOLINI | | Mon Jun 25 1990 17:00 | 5 |
| Sure. Couldn't they sign a waiver? Were sterile females allowed?
How about if she took a pregnancy test herself and offered the results?
I bet none of these things would have made any difference whatsoever.
Alcohol consumption in men can damage fetuses too, but I guess that's
irrelevant.
|
| 215.15 | | CADSE::MACKIN | It has our data and won't give it back! | Mon Jun 25 1990 19:52 | 29 |
| Re: -.1
That's an incredibly skewed view, Mike. I also think its pretty well
off the mark; my guess is that you've never done any biological
research before.
First, when running tests you shouldn't make undo assumptions about
your test population. If you always go to a special subset of the
population for your studies, then you *must* assume (unless otherwise
proven) that the studies are invalid for the rest of the population.
Given how much of an impact hormones have an organism, I think the only
approach is to assume that there *are* differences in male and females.
Which is exactly why white males tend to be the study vehicle of
choice, as a general rule.
Second, single studies don't stand on their own but the statement that
each test group requires a new baseline is nonetheless absolutely
correct. You have to have a control group to compare the experimental
group to. Data from previous studies is not usable, since other
environmental factors are present which would screw up the results.
Third, who says scientists only research things that are important?
God, the clear majority of research done is insignificant and
important. Just read the journals for how mundane (and bad) the
research is out there. I know, I did for 4+ years. And the most of it
is unmitigated crap.
Lovely how you twist reality (or make it up on the fly) to fit your
own male-centered view of the world.
|
| 215.17 | re the basenote | SKYLRK::OLSON | Partner in the Almaden Train Wreck! | Mon Jun 25 1990 22:09 | 57 |
| Dorian, thanks for entering Ellen Goodman's column, interesting
reading.
> I didn't come across this information through personal experience. I have
> never seen a female rodent with PMS, let alone hot flashes. Nor have I ever
> before worried that they were denied equal employment opportunities as
> research subjects.
And they say feminists have no sense of humor! ;-)
> The pills women swallow, the diets that we follow, the exercises we adhere
> to -- the health plan that is prescribed for us -- are for the most part
> based on research done on a thoroughly male model. Remember the cholesterol
> study? Its 4,000 subjects were men. Remember the smoking study? The 15,000
> subjects were men. How about the aspirin study? Its 22,000 doctors were all
> male.
>
> The result is that women with heart disease -- the No. 1 killer of women --
> and all sorts of ills are largely treated as if they were men.
Ah. Goodman reminds us that men and women have different profiles,
different death factors, different rates of falling victim to the
various maladies that kill both men and women. She reminds us
that the basic research only attempts to understand male physiology
in these studies; tacitly RECOGNIZING that women's physiology MIGHT
influence the outcome, and we can't risk finding that out, can we?
If there's no difference, then why can't women and female rats be
studied right in there with the males? Maybe the women's bodies will
react differently and skew the results, huh??? Oh gosh, no, that's not
a valid research question, no, no one asking questions but us rats.
> The study showed that the National Institutes of Health had failed to
> fulfill its four-year-old policy to include women in clinical trials.
> The scientists who planned, proposed and funded research had paid
> little more attention to it than a smoker pays to a warning on a
> cigarette pack.
Now, this is annoying. For every Congressperson that got up on the
constitutional amendment bandwagon about flag-burning, we should have
had a dozen who recognized that this was an issue that deserved the
headlines. Bunch of bozos. Breaking the laws with regard to meeting
the requirements for the funding of your research is a heckuva lot more
scandalous than preventing protestors from manipulating a symbol, but
where are the press conferences on this issue?
> In fairness, medical science is not all that different from any other
> business in America that is just beginning to adjust to women. There
> is the dual notion that you can either treat women just like men or
> exclude them altogether.
To me, this smacks of apology for the sad state of neglected research.
They've been refusing to pioneer the requisite studies. Goodman is too
kind. I hope that the congressional women's caucus (first I've heard
of them, by the way; what other issues are they working?) makes some
headway on the package Goodman described this summer.
DougO
|
| 215.18 | obesity research on female animals | ICS::WALKER | BIENVENU CHEZ MOI | Tue Jun 26 1990 10:18 | 15 |
| I'd sure like to see an obesity research protocol done using female
animals only -- and female animals that have been pregnant; not
necessarity rats -- men may have their brothers -- but some animal that
is more similar physiologically to humans like miniture pigs.
I've always said that obesity is primarily a female problem, and it
often follows childbirth.
One primary difference between other animals and humans is that most
animals produce their own vitamin C -- but I don't think the pig does,
and it is omniverous like us. Actually we come close to being able to
produce our own vitamin C. There is just one enzyme missing.
Sometimes I think some humans also have this enzyme.
Briana
|
| 215.19 | I TRIED to shorten this! | SPARKL::CICCOLINI | | Tue Jun 26 1990 10:40 | 119 |
| >.10>Only when they insist on applying the results to females without
>.10>studying whether or not the different factors in female physiology need
>.10>to be taken into consideration.
> Are you claiming this is what's happening?
> Or are you speculating?
Ellen, I and others in this string are stating from knowledge that this is
what is happening, and, since you like facts so much, that it is a well-
known, proven fact against which researchers, doctors and those who fund
them do not argue. This is not a secret. Go pick up a copy of JAMA or
the New England Journal of Medicine. The population(s) studied are laid
out in black and white for each results paper published. Facts are the
basis for Ellen's article. You've been told the situation. Accept it, or
bring us your contradictory data if you disagree with what everyone is
telling you is fact.
> No! Single studies do not stand on their own.
Wrong. Research protocols ARE taken as single studies and they are repeated
again and again by different teams in different parts of the country or
world and those single studies are then compared and analyzed for possible
demographic differences, researcher bias, 'artifact', etc. But rarely, if
ever, are they called on for being only male. That's generally not even
considered researcher bias.
>.10>community was satisfied with females having a lot of unknowns. Wouldn't
>.10>basic scientific curiousity, (the excuse they used for inventing the
>.10>hydrogen bomb, etc), cause at least some of them to zero in on the
>.10>female as being ripe for study specifically *because* of its many
>.10>unknowns?
> Sure, if it was important.
Exactly. And what Ellen and everyone else is saying is that male funders
make the decision on what's important and make those decisions according
to what's important TO THEM. Read Ellen's column again - especially the
part about "fund what you fear". Did you simply write Ellen off as lying?
If you're a researcher, you apply to the various funing boards, the National
Institute of Health for instance, for the money. THEY decide whether or not
your research is "important" and THEY are a high-level, high-powered agency
responsible for a lot of money. As in most cases, women are not overly
well represented at this level. And the kinds of research that gets
funded reflects a distinct bias toward males.
> That's a big if, and it presupposes that data gathered on males
> is not appliocable to females. I disagree.
Yes, Mike, that's exactly what is being said here. The researchers betray
their own belief that it is not applicable by not including women in the
studies since the results will be "different". What makes them think that?
Perhaps they know a bit more than you and I do? It's obvious that that
exclusion is a blatant admission that including women in the study may
require the inclusion of other factors into the hypothesis and other
features into the research protocol. I'm sorry you disagree with these
researchers but I think they know more about it than you do.
>.10>are using only the male model.
> To study problems unique to males, yes.
They are using only the male model to study everything EXCEPT problems
unique to females. Please try to understand the actual situation being
presented here. Women have hearts, too, but only male hearts are studied.
It came as a great surprise to the medical community to learn that women's
estrogen may prevent them from atherosclerotic buildup in the arteries
and that women's chances of heart-attack and vessel disease increase greatly
after menopause. Still, they continue to study only the male model, content
with the above, practically lay observation about the estrogen connection.
>Just as if they were using men to study pregnancy, hot flashes, ovarian
> cancer, or PMS. But, they're not.
No, the reverse situation would be if they used women only to study every-
thing except the prostate and male genitalia. Would you like if things
were this way? And please no side-stepping answer like, "if they thought
it was good enough, so do I". Because that excludes WHY they think it's
good enough and that well may be that they just can't be bothered with
the special machinations required to include males. Would that give you
a warm and fuzzy feeling as you sit in the waiting room with a life
threatening condition?
> No, there is no proof that the research being gathered in studies
> using male test animals is valid for only half of the population.
How can you say these things? Just because no proof has been thrust under
your nose you conclude that no proof exists? You have quite an egocentric
view of the world. Proof does exist even if you haven't seen it. There is
no big secret that's being uncovered here! Women being treated according to
the findings of research on males HAVE run into trouble. In fact, women
being treated for things that never happen to males run into a LOT of
trouble! Just last night in the Globe I was unsurprised to learn that
women diagnosed with breast cancer generally do NOT see an oncologist until
after surgery, if at all. She sees usually ONLY a surgeon. No man
diagnosed with any kind of cancer is kept under his surgeon's wing only.
An oncologist is immediately called in. Not so with breast cancer. And
some women suffer greatly because of it. But the studies on chemotherapy,
(what you want the oncologist for), versus surgery or even in conjunction
with surgery in treating breast cancer, have not really been paid attention
to, have not been funded, and therefore have not been done. Traditionally,
they just "lob them off" and that's that. Testicular cancer, on the other
hand, is, pardon the pun, gravely serious. Under NO circumstances are
cancerous testicles merely lobbed off. The surgeon, the ocologist, the
radiologist and the GP all confer and decide on the best course of treatment
which may involve one method or more than one in tandem or serially.
> Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm curious as to what your goal is in discussing this subject. Since it
is not from the standpoint of one who has been involved in this kind of
thing and knows from whence he speaks, I can only conclude it's your
general desire to zero in on a woman claiming sexism, and attempting to
present anything you can in the way of some other possible explanation.
Everything you have offered certainly IS a possible explanation, but those
in the medical community and those of us on the fringe know that that is
just not the case here. Gender discrimination is open, blatant, black and
white, unhidden and openly admitted to. Sometimes, you just gotta accept
that it does exist and that women know it, don't like it, and will point
it out.
|
| 215.20 | Caution ahead! | JUPTR::SMITH | Passionate committment/reasoned faith | Tue Jun 26 1990 12:22 | 11 |
| I have appreciated the many responses to Mike Z., pointing out hard
facts that he either did not know or overlooked. The replies have been
helpful and educational! Nevertheless, let's be very careful going
forward and not rise to what *may become* mere baiting. Feels like we're
getting close to that kind of rathole.
Sometimes education just doesn't "take." :(
And, of course, sometimes it does! :)
Nancy
|
| 215.21 | | COBWEB::SWALKER | lean, green, and at the screen | Wed Jun 27 1990 14:17 | 65 |
|
Re: .19 (Sandy):
> Just last night in the Globe I was unsurprised to learn that
> women diagnosed with breast cancer generally do NOT see an oncologist until
> after surgery, if at all. She sees usually ONLY a surgeon. [...]
> But the studies on chemotherapy,
> (what you want the oncologist for), versus surgery or even in conjunction
> with surgery in treating breast cancer, have not really been paid attention
> to, have not been funded, and therefore have not been done. Traditionally,
> they just "lob them off" and that's that.
Is all of that info from the article? I know for a fact that
some of that is not true (my mother was/is a subject in a very
well-funded chemo study). The "traditional" treatment for breast
cancer was a radical mastectomy plus chemotherapy, although that
is hardly ever done anymore. Currently, most early-stage breast
cancers are treated with lumpectomies plus radiation treatment
and maybe chemotherapy. That's a far cry from "lob them off and
that's that"!... and it's due to studies that have been funded,
done, and have had far reaching effects.
Despite all sorts of tests available, It's hard to tell the real
nature of a tumor (size, shape, nodal involvement, attachment to
muscles or other internal organs, etc.) before surgery. This is
why, in many cases, an oncologist doesn't prescribe treatment until
after surgery, when they have enough data to evaluate the case
properly. Before surgery, a shocking amount is still guesswork -
finger prodding, biopsies, blood tests, xrays, and bone and cat
scans don't tell the full story... from these they can tell if the
tumor is malignant and whether the cancer has spread, but not much
about the tumor itself. Therefore, before a properly controlled
chemo-only study could be done, for example, more advances would
be needed in diagnostic testing (Unless, of course, you're
advocating before and after exploratory surgery - and general
anesthesia. If it were me, I'd definitely take the lumpectomy).
Re .9 (Ann B.):
> I know that they use only one gender of rats in cancer research
> because a pregnant rat cannot have cancer. (Instant remission.)
Interesting! Do you know of any data on the effect of pregnancy
on cancer in humans? Do they know what causes this phenomenon
in rats?
Re .14 (Mike Z):
> That's a big if, and it presupposes that data gathered on males
> is not appliocable to females. I disagree.
The issue is not whether you, personally, disagree, but whether
there is research data from a controlled study for the particular
disease in question that would back that opinion up. For most
diseases, this work does not exist, and yet women are treated
according to the male model anyway. Whatever happened to "What
you end up with is a male animal model with centuries of data
behind it, and a female animal model with a lot of unknowns"?
That's just the point.
Sharon
|
| 215.22 | | SPARKL::CICCOLINI | | Wed Jun 27 1990 17:36 | 6 |
| Sharon, the article is in Monday's Globe, (6/25), if you want to
check it out. Their point was that sometimes chemo only could be
adequate. And it's not to say that absolutely no studies are being
done, but comparatively few. I should have had the article here
with me when I typed that in so I could provide actual quotes.
I do wish your mother well.
|
| 215.23 | | REGENT::BROOMHEAD | Don't panic -- yet. | Wed Jun 27 1990 18:07 | 28 |
| Sharon,
All I know about laboratory rats I learned from my college roommate,
Gail, and I just told you most of it.
I've noticed in my readings (since being sensitized to the cancer-
pregnancy question by Gail) that sometimes cancers seem to go into
remission during pregnancy and sometimes cancers grow even faster
during pregnancy.
In either case it looks like we have, well, not a key but a picklock
for the Door of Immortality and it's not obvious that we're even
trying to use it! If I did bioresearch on rats, I'd find out every
chemical difference between a pregnant and a non-pregnant rat; I'd
find out every chemical difference between a pregnant rat without
cancer, a (freshly) pregnant rat with cancer, and a pregnant rat
which is going into remission; I'd test each one against cancer
cells in vitro, against cancer in non-pregnant female rats, and
against cancer in male rats; I'd look for the reaction of non-pregnant
female rats and of male rats without cancer; I'd look for the production
of other chemicals in the non-pregnant female rats and of the male
rats with and without cancer.
It would be a fabulous course of investigation. Why wasn't it done
twenty years ago? And ten years ago, as we learned to detect more
chemical changes?
Ann B.
|
| 215.24 | medical research = boys club | ROLL::MINER | Barbara Miner HLO2-3 | Wed Jun 27 1990 18:31 | 29 |
|
I was reading about infant colick (sp?) -- where a newborn cries
inconsolably for as much as 18 hours a day every day for as long
as 4 months. (I can't even imagine coping with that).
I was astounded that NO ONE knows what causes this extreme condition.
My husband's comment??
Shows you that mothers haven't been funding medical research.
I read an autobiography of a woman surgeon, who was trained in the 70's
in this country. She LEARNED in medical school that menstrual pain was
completely psychosamatic; she had never had cramps until she was in her
30's and with her first episode, she thought she was **dying**.
On the UP side:
I think that the "new" idea that pregnancy is not an illness, and more
natural child birthing are a direct result of the increasing number
of female physicians.
My sister just completed her residency. Her class was about 60% female
Barbi
|
| 215.25 | | ULTRA::WITTENBERG | Secure Systems for Insecure People | Mon Jul 16 1990 16:53 | 8 |
| There was a letter to the editor in respone to the basenote. The
author said that there was considerably more money for exclusively
female diseases (eg. breast cancer) than there was for exclusively
male diseases (eg. prostate cancer.) The letter didn't address the
issue of using only male subjects in diseases which exist in both
sexes, but may behave differently.
--David
|
| 215.26 | nearly a year later, same story | LDYBUG::GOLDMAN | Each moment is a new reality | Thu Apr 11 1991 23:28 | 105 |
| There was an article in the May issue of Shape Magazine about this
(well, really it was the Publisher's Page column by Joe Weider).
The Invisible Woman
When it comes to funding medical research for women, the buck
stops. Period.
Half the world's population may be women, but when it comes to
medical research, it's still a man's world. The diets, exercises
and medications prescribed for women are based on research done
nearly exclusively on men, and researchers have yet to conduct
studies on AIDS therapies, antidepressants adn new contraceptive
measures for women.
None of this would be a problem if women were like men. But
aside from their obvious sexual differences, women are
physiologically very different from men in many other ways. For
instance, their heart health differs so markedly that
cardiovascular disease strikes women later in life; blood
cholesterol levels also play a different role in women than in
men.
Even when women are at a high risk for a particular disease
they are excluded from studies, or the studies are never proposed
at all. A few examples:
o Even though heart disease is the No. 1 killer among women, a
recent study which shows that aspirin dramatically lowers the risk
of heart attacks was conducted exclusively on men. When a patient
asked her physician if she could take aspirin to lower her risk,
Elizabeth Karlin, M.D., of the University of Wisconsin Medical
School, had no answer. "There were simply no data to say this was
safe for women," says Karlin.
o While breast cancer has doubled in incidence since 1960 and now
kills 44,000 women each year, two years ago the National Institute
of Health (NIH), a major funder for medical research, halted an
important study of breast cancer and lowfat diets because of cost.
o Although one-third of older women take estrogen replacement
therapy for osteoporosis and other effects of menopause, there's
no research as to how it may alter the risks of heart disease and
breast cancer.
o Drugs are routinely developed with incomplete data on the
metabolic differences between men and women.
The result is an information gap that is endangering the lives
of millions of American women. Last June, Congress' General
Accounting Office released a report which condemned the NIH for
failing to encourage studies that gave equal attention to men and
women.
Rep. Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, co-chair of the
Congressional Caucus for Women which commissioned the study,
introduced a $237 million legislative package aimed at achieving
"parity in research." According to Schroeder, only 13 percent of
the NIH's $5.7 billion budget goes to study the health risks of
women. "The lack of gender-specific data sends a message that
it's OK to put women's health at risk," she says.
Some scientists justify excluding females from studies on the
grounds that their hormonal balances complicate research and raise
costs.
Others, according to Karlin, argue that women who enroll in
clinical trials and become pregnant could endanger the fetus.
"There is a tendency to think of women as walking wombs," she says.
Judy Mahle Lutter, co-founder of Melpomene Institute in St.
Paul, Minnesota, a nonprofit research and resource organization
incorporated in 1981 to study the impact of physical activity on
girls and women, cites the "old boy network" as another reason.
"There are more men doing research at the higher levels of the
NIH, and they fund the men they know," says Lutter. "This old boy
network has prevented women researchers and organizations from
getting any of those NIH dollars, which are the big dollars.
Without them, you really have to scrounge."
And scrounge they do at Melpomene, which must conduct most of
its research on women on a "shoestring budget," says Lutter. A
current study on exercise and menopause is being funded by a
$1,000 grant. "We'd need $20,000 to $30,000 to do it well," says
Lutter.
"You fund what you fear," says Schroeder. "When you have a
male-dominated group of researchers, they are more concerned with
prostate cancer than breast cancer."
While the NIH has had a policy since 1986 requiring that
grant applications at least consider including women in their
research, it is largely ignored. But hope is on the horizon:
Bernadine Healy, M.D., of the Cleveland Clinic - the first woman
ever recommended to head the NIH and the likely successor of
current director William Raub, Ph.D. - vows to exercise
"relentless pressure" on researchers and policymakers to ensure
that women get equal attention in health studies.
Until the medical world stops playing blindman's bluff with
women's bodies, women will have to decide which is the more bitter
pill to swallow: being sick, or being "treated" as a man.
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