Uomo Vitruviano Vitruvian Man 1492 Leonardo Da Vinci.
Taking medicine or having surgery can be problematic for women. Pain impacts healing, hormones cycles react with immunity building from vaccinations, life cycle changes alter heart health. AND NONE OF IT HAS BEEN STUDIED!!! Not really.
Because it is “too complicated”.
Half of humanity, and the differences everyone says exists between men and women medically, have never been really studied.
Testing of drugs, longitudinal studies of human health, EVEN ANIMAL TESTING. Male subjects only need apply.
“For much of documented history, women have been excluded from medical and science knowledge production, so essentially we’ve ended up with a healthcare system, among other things in society, that has been made by men for men,” Dr Kate Young, a public health researcher at Monash University in Australia
Want to test diets? The 1982 Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, seeing if dietary change and exercise can prevent heart disease – only men subjects, all 13,000 participants were male.
And why animal testing on only male subjects? Well, the female subjects just added too much extra data to track. Too much complication.
Never mind over half of humanity taking the drugs after they are through going through the (male only) animal trials and (male only) human trials are female. It’s too much work. And the few times they do include women, they forget to break out the gender separate.
Is it any wonder the drugs are not as effective?
We need to do better.
Short and quick in article format:
Jackson, Gabrielle. “The female problem: how male bias in medical trials ruined women’s health.” The Guardian. 2019 Nov 13. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials?fbclid=IwAR2SYwQzIMZze958gnL2-Zu7nxYFF04iA5aUeHtqULBzhHCoyrFc5ayivLU (last viewed 4/5/2022)
Full book format:
Jackson, Gabrielle. “Pain and Prejudice: How the Medical System Ignores Women – And What We Can do About It” (Amazon link)