Medical Research is Sex-Biased
Medical research is a major area that is flawed because of the lack
of women in medicine. Medicine, governed and practiced primarily by
men, has based its research on a "norm" of a white, 150-pound
male. Yet, although most research has been done on men, the results
are generalized to all persons, regardless of whether they are relevant
for women. Among those studies:
- A $150 million ten-year study on cholesterol and heart disease in
men by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
- The landmark Physician's Health Study on the potential benefits
of aspirin to prevent heart attacks in 22,000 men.
- A national study of 4,000 businessmen that first formulated the
concept of the Type A personality.
What is good for the gander is not always good for the goose. Still,
researchers and doctors persist in applying male answers to female questions
despite the evidence that all diseases are not the same in men and women.
It has been documented that women are more prone to thyroid and gall
bladder problems, rheumatoid arthritis, and eating disorders. Men are
more prone to ulcers and hernias, have shorter life expectancies and
experience different problems in aging. To dismiss gender differences
in illnesses as trivial or ignore them is not only poor medicine, it
is downright dangerous for women. In addition, there are some conditions,
such as menopause and the effects of oral contraceptives, that are unique
to women and merit more thorough study.
Ironically, it is the very fact that women are different that is
used as an excuse by men to exclude women from studies. Male researchers
often claim the female body is "too complex" to use in controlled
studies. According to this rationale, men's bodies are much more similar
to the "norm" than women's. With women, menstrual cycle, pregnancy,
and pre- and post- menopausal phases all present additional factors.
Hence, it is easier to draw conclusions from experiments using males.
Medical researchers most frequently choose to take the "easier"
population to study.
Just as important as the research that is done (or more often, is
not done) on women, is how it is applied. For if woman as subject suffers,
woman as patient suffers even more.
Doctors Neglect Women Patients
Too often, women's symptoms are not taken seriously. From the moment
a woman enters the medical system, her observations and symptoms are
more likely to be considered insignificant or due to emotional reasons
than a man's symptoms. Even when the evidence is identical to men's,
physicians still ignore it. In a 1987 study of male and female patients
whose test results on their heart were abnormal, doctors were twice
as likely to attribute the wornen's symptoms to psychiatric or other
non-cardiac causes than the men's.
Even when women's symptoms are taken seriously, they are treated less
aggressively than men's. A study published in the New England Joumal
of Medicine in 1991 showed that women with heart trouble were less
likely to receive cardiac catheterization or coronary bypass surgery,
even though the symptoms the women reported were consistent with severe
heart trouble. This occurred despite the fact that more women than men
die from heart disease each year.
Heart disease is not the only illness in which there is a discrepancy
in treatment. In another study, women were twice as likely as men not
to receive a diagnostic test for lung cancer, even though lung cancer
is now the number one cancer killer of women.
Kidney disease treatment also favors men. Women with kidney disease
were not only less likely to receive dialysis, but also less likely
to receive a kidney transplant. At every age, male patients were prioritized
over women, with the biggest gap occurring in the 46-60 age group. A
woman at that age was only half as likely to receive a transplant as
a male the same age with the exact same condition.
When women are not at every level of medicine reaffirming the seriousness
of what female patients are saying, it is women who die from the silence.
Medical Statistics Are Misleading
These medical treatment patterns fly in the face of statistics that
show women are the primary users of the medical system, are more likely
to have tests ordered, more likely to be prescribed something, and are
operated on more. How can these two contradictions exist?
The tragic flip side of this is that when women with symptoms or problems
unique to women are taken seriously, they are more likely to be submitted
to debilitating procedures or "overkill." According to the
1987 National Hospital Discharge Survey and Annual Summary, caesarean
section and hysterectomy were listed as the third and sixth most common
surgical procedures done in the United States.
All told, of the top 20 most common surgical procedures, six are performed
exclusively on women. And due to the lack of women in decision-making
positions, no clarion call is being sounded to find alternatives to
these invasive procedures.
Women are also more likely to be prescribed sedatives, tranquilizers,
or anti-anxiety agents. In a study done in the early 1970s, 20% of adult
American women, but only 8% of adult American men had been prescribed
"daytime sedatives." Twenty years later, in a 1990 study,
scientists found that the traits most likely to increase one's chance
of being prescribed a sedative were to be white, divorced or separated,
older, and female. Again, this tendency reaches ludicrous proportions:
One woman was prescribed Valium for her heart palpitations!
The need for women in decision-making positions in medicine is critical.
For too long, women's health has been ignored, their symptoms dismissed,
and their biological differences, used in other fields as a reason for
women's exclusion, trivialized as not worth studying.
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