Health Questions and Answers: Do drug companies conduct their clinic trial tests more frequently upon men or women?

Health Question:
Do drug companies conduct their clinic trial tests more frequently upon men or women?

Question:
I would like to know if drug companies do their trial tests more frequently upon men or women. If it is men, is it because women have hormonal levels that they don't want to deal with? Where could I go to find more information?

Response:
Yes -- in the past, drug trials were done almost exclusively on males, and yes, one main reason they did not use women for testing was changing hormone levels. Another reason was the potential impact or risk on future babies born to the women...

Unfortunately, as a result, women were/are prescribed medications based upon how they affected men without regard to whether the drugs act differently in women's bodies. Some heart medications, in particular, affect women differently than men.

I have two books to recommend. Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert, PhD which gives a look behind the scenes at how research is conducted, by whom and why. Another excellent book is Outrageous Practices which describes medicine's bias against women and the lack of inclusion of women in clinical research.

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