The Guardian view on bias in medical research: disregard for women’s health belongs in the past

[Sly Saint]

Six years after Caroline Criado Perez’s bestselling book Invisible Women drew a mass readership’s attention to the long history of sexist bias in medical research, it is shocking that women and their illnesses are still underrepresented in clinical trials. Analysis by the Guardian of data gathered for a new study showed that from 2019 to 2023, 282 trials involving only male subjects were submitted for regulatory approval in the UK – compared with 169 focused on women.

Women, on average, live longer than men, so in this sense men can be said to be disadvantaged. But in addition to the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth, far more women have dementia, while survival rates from female- and male-specific cancers – and other diseases that affect the sexes differently – are highly variable.

The five-year period in this study, which was carried out by the University of Liverpool and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), was not necessarily typical. It does not reveal how funding was divided up.

But taking on board these caveats, it is hard to see a benign explanation for there being 67% more trials investigating men’s health than women’s. This gap in research inputs could reasonably be expected to contribute to a disparity in outcomes further down the line.

The Guardian view on bias in medical research: disregard for women’s health belongs in the past

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

"But taking on board these caveats, it is hard to see a benign explanation "

Only if you are as dumb as a newspaper editor.