NIH: New Drugs Must Be Tested on Both Sexes

Women's Health News

Obie Editorial Team

  • Women are more likely to develop multiple sclerosis (MS) than men are but the disease usually affects men more severely.
  • Female lab rats are more likely to abuse alcohol and cocaine when anxious or under extreme stress than male rats.
  • Human women are more likely to feel temporary relief from withdrawal cravings for alcohol, cocaine, opioids, and nicotine when taking guanfacine, a drug commonly prescribed for hypertension, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and anxiety but it doesn’t relieve withdrawal symptoms as effectively for men.
  • Typical heart attack symptoms vary widely between men and women; women often don’t realize they’re having a heart attack and medical personnel often misdiagnose them.

Testing of a new drug, procedure, or medical device is a multi-phased process. It first begins with just tissue samples and, if results produced the desired outcome, the research is advanced to include animal tests. Male animals are used more often than females due to the simpler hormone system of male mammals and because female animals cost more. It’s at the tissue- and animal-testing phases that the NIH wants to see more study on female cells, tissues, and animals.

Once a clinical trial advances the to the human stage, men are used more often than women, especially women of reproductive age, due to concerns of ethics and reproductive health. As the gender divide is becoming more apparent on even the microscopic level, it is becoming increasingly evident that testing of female tissue is needed for optimum safety and effectiveness for all.


Source: Clayton, Janine A., and Francis S. Collins. “Policy: NIH to balance sex in cell and animal studies.” Nature. Nature Publishing Group / Macmillan Publishers Limited. May 14, 2014. Web. Jun 15, 2014.