Women Abound in NIH Trials

摘要

Six years ago, a Newyork times columnist confidently stated that, before Bernadine Healy became director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1991, "women were usually excluded from clinical trials." It's a popular and tenacious view, but it's hard to find evidence for it. In fact, the current ratio of women to men in U.S.-government-funded trials is about 2-to-1. It's true that until the 1980s, women of reproductive age were often excluded from trials, ostensibly to avoid harm to fetuses. The impression of male-dominated trials was reinforced by two large men-only heart trials launched in 1972 and 1981. In 1987, NIH formally made a commitment to include more women in research and followed in 1990 with the establishment of the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health. In 1991, NIH started the 15-year Women's Health Initiative, an intensive study of postmenopausal women.