Anita Layton is the Canada 150 Research Chair in Mathematical Biology and Medicine and professor of applied mathematics and pharmacy at the University of Waterloo.
Gender bias and misconception are by no means limited to heart-attack symptoms. That bias exists throughout the health-care system, from medical research to disease diagnostic and treatment approaches. If we are to address this grim reality with the urgency it requires, more attention must be paid by the broader public, who might not be aware of this dangerous gap in knowledge, and by scientists, who must include both sexes in biomedical research.
One reason for excluding females may be their menstrual cycles and fluctuating hormones, which scientists feared may limit the reliability and reproducibility of findings obtained in female subjects. Another deterrent may be cost: Repeating the experiments in both sexes would require twice the resources. For these reasons, experiments were often conducted in males, with the assumption that the findings would apply to females as well.
Policy-makers have the ability to close the gender gap in medical research. Recent mandates from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research requiring the incorporation of Sex and Gender-Based Analysis in CIHR-funded research have raised the number of females included in experimental and clinical studies, although participation from women still lags that of men.
GlobeDebate Globe should stop telling these nonsense gender bias stories. The one size fit all medication treatment doesn't differentiate people by gender, age, or race. Why only hurts women?
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