Averaging health data harms both sexes

Letter to the editor
Copyright 2000 USA TODAY
May 11, 2000

USA TODAY'S editorial "Government-funded studies deny women key health data" is off the mark (Our view, Gender and medical research debate, Monday).

While federal law requires NIH-funded researchers to conduct analysis of sex differences, the law must be implemented judiciously, or all health research will suffer.

Few medications have significant sex-specific differences; so sex-specific analysis is not routinely necessary. Analysis for sex-specific effects requires more study subjects. Routine analysis would cause the cost clinical trials to skyrocket. Fewer studies would be funded, producing less medical knowledge.

Researchers need a reason to anticipate sex-specific differences. Such information typically comes from smaller trials preceding a larger trials. If preliminary data suggest differences, researchers should follow up with sex-specific trials.

The failure to look for sex-differences is depicted as hurting only women. If differences between sexes are glossed over, men are harmed too. Averaging results obscures differences for both sexes.

The story has so far unfolded as a classic example of women's health advocates viewing events through a lens of aggrievement and manifesting a stunning insensitivity to the trade-offs inherent in research policy.

Steven J. Milloy, publisher
Junkscience.com
Potomac, Md.