Over two decades ago The National Institute of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, supposedly setting the stage for major advances in women’s health by requiring that all NIH-funded medical research include women and minorities. Yet despite the expanded mandate, disparities still remain.
The Revitalization Act of 1993 mandated, for the first time, the inclusion of women and minorities in research funded by The National Institutes of Health. Before then, medical researches--working on every scientific stage from early discovery to clinical trials--were encouraged to include women but, as it was never enforced, rarely did. Male mice were almost exclusively used in laboratory experiments.
The now notorious "baby aspirin study", which found that taking a baby aspirin a day helps prevent heart attacks, was found to be conducted entirely on men and in application?--the women taking aspirin had about the same number of heart attacks as the participants taking a placebo. It was later found in a different research study that the risks of regular aspirin intake outweighed the benefits.
Before 1990, the term “women’s health” was limited primarily to reproductive health. To the extent if there was any interest at all in the field, it was in terms of family planning, maternal and child health, and abortion. While these are important aspects of women’s health, they are not the drivers of the women’s health field, which, thanks to the Revitalization Act connotes the overall health of women, including an acknowledgement of sex differences in the physiology of men and women down to the molecular level.
According to Dr. Paula Johnson--a study co-author, on the 'Sex-Specific Medical Research - Why Women’s Health Can’t Wait' report from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital that found fewer women than men are still involved in clinical trials on new drugs and medical devices despite the 1993 legislature--that there are sex differences throughout every organ system.
In this short interview with Dr. Johnson, she outlines the need for a women's heath equity plan and has been a pioneer in the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease, Dr. Johnson conceived of and developed one of the first facilities in the country to focus on heart disease in women. This is an extremely important endeavor that the good doctor has accomplished, especially when cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women. So yeah, maybe instead of the hyper-focus on the encasement outside of women's chests, we should really be caring about what's happening behind them.
It's necessary to develop more stringent government funding to include females in medical studies and report data by sex. Namely because diseases can look different in women and minorities, the vast majority of medical professionals are not testing for these discrepancies causing unnecessary higher rates of poverty and mortality for females and minorities. The societal costs to Americans by continuing to neglect the already marginalized health issues of women and minorities morally supersedes any kind of monetary expense it would take to correct such an outrageously myopic foresight.
The Revitalization Act of 1993 mandated, for the first time, the inclusion of women and minorities in research funded by The National Institutes of Health. Before then, medical researches--working on every scientific stage from early discovery to clinical trials--were encouraged to include women but, as it was never enforced, rarely did. Male mice were almost exclusively used in laboratory experiments.
The now notorious "baby aspirin study", which found that taking a baby aspirin a day helps prevent heart attacks, was found to be conducted entirely on men and in application?--the women taking aspirin had about the same number of heart attacks as the participants taking a placebo. It was later found in a different research study that the risks of regular aspirin intake outweighed the benefits.
Before 1990, the term “women’s health” was limited primarily to reproductive health. To the extent if there was any interest at all in the field, it was in terms of family planning, maternal and child health, and abortion. While these are important aspects of women’s health, they are not the drivers of the women’s health field, which, thanks to the Revitalization Act connotes the overall health of women, including an acknowledgement of sex differences in the physiology of men and women down to the molecular level.
According to Dr. Paula Johnson--a study co-author, on the 'Sex-Specific Medical Research - Why Women’s Health Can’t Wait' report from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital that found fewer women than men are still involved in clinical trials on new drugs and medical devices despite the 1993 legislature--that there are sex differences throughout every organ system.
In this short interview with Dr. Johnson, she outlines the need for a women's heath equity plan and has been a pioneer in the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease, Dr. Johnson conceived of and developed one of the first facilities in the country to focus on heart disease in women. This is an extremely important endeavor that the good doctor has accomplished, especially when cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women. So yeah, maybe instead of the hyper-focus on the encasement outside of women's chests, we should really be caring about what's happening behind them.
(Instead of "Save The Boobies" - shouldn't we be hearing more"Stop Breaking My Heart", so we can finally have a future free of breast cancer ads that look suspiciously* like lesbian porn?)
Women that are non-smokers are three times more likely to die of lung disease then men who are non-smokers and we still don't know why. Despite me being a medical novice I'll ignorantly point out that the "health and beauty" industry caters more to women with all of their innumerable beauty products that are probably chock full of cancer causing antigens. But apparently getting medical funding to prove or disprove my theory will be hard to come by.
Medical research does not account for sex differences, and that could have major public health implications for both genders in the long and short-term. We are failing American females in the study of cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, depression, Alzheimer's, and even pregnancy induced disease. And there is a virtual laundry list of pregnancy induced diseases and complications.
It's necessary to develop more stringent government funding to include females in medical studies and report data by sex. Namely because diseases can look different in women and minorities, the vast majority of medical professionals are not testing for these discrepancies causing unnecessary higher rates of poverty and mortality for females and minorities. The societal costs to Americans by continuing to neglect the already marginalized health issues of women and minorities morally supersedes any kind of monetary expense it would take to correct such an outrageously myopic foresight.
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