
Use of male mice skews drug research against women, study finds - bem94
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/31/sexist-research-means-drugs-more-tailored-to-men-says-scientist
======
refurb
This article was written by someone who obviously has little knowledge how
drugs are actually discovered and developed.

First, as someone already pointed out, mouse models kind of suck. They are
very different than humans, so adding in female mice isn't really going to
tell you a whole lot.

Second, a core tenet of research is to minimize your variables. Adding in
female mice (who go through estrus cycles) is probably going to mess up your
results and make them even harder to interpret. Plus, you'd have to double the
size of your study to maintain statistical power.

Third, once a drug passes into human testing, females are already included in
research (unless it's a purely male disease). So we're not really missing
anything here. If a drug company did limit testing to males, the FDA would
take them to task and probably limit their use in males only. Why would a drug
company want to cut off half of their potential customers.

What a terrible article overall.

~~~
cygx
_Adding in female mice (who go through estrus cycles) is probably going to
mess up your results and make them even harder to interpret._

The article and its linked sources address this point, citing two meta-
analyses regarding mice and rats in neuroscience:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24456941](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24456941)

"The underrepresentation of female mice in neuroscience and biomedical
research is based on the assumption that females are intrinsically more
variable than males and must be tested at each of four stages of the estrous
cycle to generate reliable data. Neither belief is empirically based. [...]
Utilization of female mice in neuroscience research does not require
monitoring of the estrous cycle."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27468347](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27468347)

"Across all traits, there were no sex differences in trait variability, as
indicated by the CV, and there were no sex differences in any of the four
neuroscience categories, even in instances in which mean values for males and
females were significantly different. Female rats were not more variable at
any stage of the estrous cycle than male rats."

~~~
refurb
The key in your sources is _neuroscience_. I can believe there is no impact of
sex on those results, but there can be a number of different therapeutic areas
where it does impact things.

Also, unless you have evidence that sex has no effect, as a scientist you'd
want to be cautious and keep your variables to a minimum. Easiest way to do
that is have all mice of the same sex.

------
derp_dee_derp
sometimes I read an article, like this one, that has a sound basis in science,
look at the headline, look at where its published, think about the target
audience that will read the article, and can't help but question the "why"
that article was published.

Is there any reason at all to publish an article about the gender of research
mice in __the Guardian __except to push some kind of political gender agenda?

I ask specifically because of the article's last 4 paragraphs. They are so
laden with gender agenda it kind of blows my mind.

~~~
brenschluss
It seems pretty rational and interesting to me that a persistent bias in the
gender or research bias continues and amplifies a persistent bias in whom
drugs are best serving.

Do you have an “anti-gender” agenda where you wish that gender is not
discussed?

~~~
weberc2
I'm sure those things are interesting; however, you don't learn about them by
cherrypicking sources and studies to suit a particular agenda. In particular,
by challenging TFA's overt agenda pushing, the parent isn't advocating a
different agenda (except perhaps for more objective science journalism).

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rc_kas
Use of mice skews drug research against humans also. Not that I want to use
drugs on humans. But you have to wonder how many drugs there are that work on
humans but not mice.

~~~
throwaway66666
We are on the quest to achieve mice immortality!

~~~
yters
Douglas Adams has taught me the truth!

------
air7
> ...the ways in which the male and female brains differ may have remained
> under-investigated due to a backlash against the idea of there being
> meaningful differences between the male and female brain.

This is bad. Contemporary views affecting scientific research is not a good
direction to go. The religious, dark-ageesque nature of the above statement is
obvious: It's a fight against attempts to undermine a comfortable preconceived
idea.

I believe, similar to the famous quote about free-speech[0], that we must
fight for science to have free-reigns in it's research directions even if we
don't like the premise or the possible outcomes. Nothing should be off-limits
in the pursuit of (a close approximation of) the truth.

Besides, science is not sensational, it's actually rather boring (in a good
way), especially when considering single studies. It is the far-fetched
interpretations of the results that are sensational, and therefor problematic.
And these are usually done by attention-seeking media outlets.

It shouldn't be the scientist's responsibility to steer clear of research that
might be interpreted sensationally, and the universities shouldn't discourage
such research for fear of "bad press" but rather champion it in the name
science-above-politics.

\----------------------

[0] "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it" \- Evelyn Beatrice Hall

------
hawaiian
Related: there was a study mentioned in a pop science article recently showing
that ketogenic diets were not effective in female mice compared to male, until
the female mice had their ovaries removed. Unfortunately, I'm unable to find
the study itself.

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whateveracct
People are arguing about the use of mice etc..but it has been shown that
medical care is male-oriented which negative affects female outcomes (heart
disease and attacks for example.)

~~~
BlackRing
> but it has been shown that medical care is male-oriented which negative
> affects female outcomes

I'm new to this idea. Where has it been shown? What level or aspect is it
male-oriented? What negative affects are there?

~~~
Blackthorn
Symptoms of heart attacks in men and women are different. All the commonly
known symptoms are _male_ symptoms to the point that even medical
professionals can not realize that a woman is having a heart attack.

~~~
whateveracct
Yep. There are plenty of anecdotes out there of women having life-threatening
heart issues and being told by their doctor that they are overreacting or
suffering from anxiety due to their symptoms differing from male symptoms.

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snambi
Poor mice. The scientists should experiment on their body, not on some other
body. This is cruel.

~~~
neonate
I agree, and have often had the feeling that a better scientific method would
say: you can experiment however you want on another being, as long as you're
willing to have it done to yourself as well. Do you want to look at something
under a microscope? Very well, if you agree to also be looked at under a
microscope. Do you want to cut something into pieces and examine it? Very
well, if you agree to also be cut into pieces and examined.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
You want to eat? Very well, if you agree to also be eaten.

------
misterbishop
It's sort of weird to see this article framed as a progressive move against
male bias when it seems to buy wholesale into a gender essentialialist
worldview. The piece even touches on it at the end, dropping a hand grenade in
its last line:

"There’s nothing anti-feminist about saying the neurobiology in the female
brain might be different."

\- I'm not sure about this ^

That being said, I don't think the practice of using exclusively male mice in
lab testing can be justified either. For the same reason: reject gender
essentialism.

~~~
not_a_cop75
You can't very well have it both ways. Either you recognize that there are
real physical differences or you don't.

If you don't recognize differences in the female, then what you are saying is
that sex is a social construct and that sex reassignment surgery is a make
believe product. In such a case, feminism is a fraud product for a fake
difference that doesn't exist.

Even if you can have a man and female that look physically identical in every
way, and that might be possible, you still have to deal with the average
distance between physical traits, which is quite real and measurable. And also
the hormonal differences, and the differences caused by internal structures
based upon this signaling which is often different even from an early age.

Feminism, as I have seen it, has its basis in recognizing that differences in
sex can sometimes lead to only small gaps in task performance, and thus the
sexes in many ways are like for like. Generally true.

Good luck being saved by an all female group of firefighters, however. I wish
you all the best in that. But maybe that is the cost of "equality". More
people die, and quality sometimes diminishes.

I'll believe your rejection of gender essentialism when men are delivering
babies. They can obviously produce milk, and that's already well documented.

Edit: To be fair, you can absolutely have firefighters that are female and
even more prepared to save lives than males. The problem is that a quota
system encourages physical features rather than merit to be key indicators in
hiring, which is absolutely the wrong thing. A serious weightlifter that was
female could easily be an amazing fire fighter.

~~~
misterbishop
You're making a basic mistake between gender and sex. Gender is a social
category, and women as a social group are oppressed in various ways. A major
task of feminism is to identify and end gender-based oppression. None of that
depends on a biologically-determined notion of womanhood.

You're also making an extremely lazy mistake about "average distance between
physical traits". I would absolutely trust the capabilities of an all-female
fire dept. Not least because people who get into firefighting are not average
physical specimens, they have to meet some standard of physical fitness. If a
man, woman or gender nonbinary person meet the requirements (btw i think we're
both buying into an exaggerated notion of the physical fitness of
firefighters), then what reason would I have for doubting their capabilities?
Would you want to be saved from a burning building by a team of men with the
build of a computer programmer? Gender is not the important question here, and
that should be obvious.

~~~
viklove
That's the thing though -- usually the physical requirements are drastically
different. I'm not sure about fire departments, but in the US military the
physical requirements for women are laughable compared to those for men.

~~~
yters
Yes, compare the different pullup standard for men vs women in the Marine
corps PFT: [https://www.military.com/military-fitness/marine-corps-
fitne...](https://www.military.com/military-fitness/marine-corps-fitness-
requirements/usmc-physical-fitness-test)

"Pull-ups

This event is not timed, your score is determined by how many pull-ups you can
complete before dropping off the bar. This event is male Marines only.

Flexed-Arm Hang

This event is timed, your score is based on how long you can hang maintaining
elbow flexion. This event is for female Marines."

~~~
anchpop
Without knowing more it's not obvious to me which is the higher standard. I
can do a few pullups but probably couldn't hang for more than a minute.

~~~
yters
Max score for hanging is 70 seconds.

