It’s a largely ignored fact: for women, drugs produce less good results but more side effects. Until now, pharmaceutical companies have not even questioned whether men and women react the same way to a drug. Yet this is necessary, because if the symptoms of the disease and its prevalence differ according to the sex of the patient, the effects of the treatment also differ. Gender differences are more visible in treatments than in pathologies. Thus, aspirin, one of the most prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs, prevents heart attacks in men while protecting women’s brains from stroke. As for vaccination, it is more effective in women. For example, a half dose of the flu vaccine will produce an immune response in them equivalent to that in men who received a full dose. However, with the same amount of vaccine, women more often develop side effects, such as painful inflammation, fever, and others. When it comes to adverse effects, women are doubly at risk: an analysis of 25,000 prescriptions filled in German hospitals in 2008 showed a 50% higher risk of side effects in women after taking the drugs. Clinical Observations Although it has been discovered that the female and male bodies react differently to diseases, pharmacological research is facing the same revolution that is forcing them to rethink the way drugs are developed. This is far from affecting all laboratories. Worse, the first phases of clinical trials, which are supposed to test the safety of drugs, most of the time involve only men, recalls Walter Mallorni of the research and pharmacological evaluation department of the Italian National Health Institute. How to explain this underrepresentation of women in clinical trials? The researchers point to two reasons: the risk of pregnancy and the use of hormonal contraceptives, which can affect the results. This greatly reduces the number of women who can participate in clinical trials. In this case, data from cohorts including men and women should be analyzed with even more care. It is true that economic reality plays an inhibiting role here. This is because accounting for gender takes time and costs more, especially in clinical studies. Even in laboratory experiments, researchers prefer men because they fear that women’s hormonal cycles will alter the results. This has consequences for the quality of the treatments offered, as it is these laboratory studies that allow potential drugs to be identified. The case of the herpes vaccine Another catch: by giving up on developing a treatment because it’s ineffective for a group made up of men, we risk missing molecules that might work in women. Thus, many substances,candidates to be classified as narcotic could regularly go unnoticed. The case of the herpes vaccine developed in the early 2000s illustrates this problem perfectly. During clinical trials, despite the lack of a gender-specific protocol, the difference in efficacy between men and women was so obvious that it could not be ignored. While the vaccine showed no effectiveness in men, it was found to protect 73% of women. Yes, but gender mainstreaming is an expensive endeavor. This may partly explain, according to a researcher, why development of the vaccine, effective only in women, was eventually shelved. Sources: https://www.science-et-vie.com/questions-reponses/est-il-vrai-que-les-medicaments-soignent-moins-bien-les-femmes-8202