Why are women needed for medical research studies?
For many years, researchers did not include women in medical research studies. They just assumed that if a treatment worked for men, it would work the same way for women. Now we know that women and men can react differently to the same treatment, and that some treatments that work for men may not work as well for women and vice versa. In addition, there are many diseases and conditions that only affect women, such as cancer of the uterus or ovaries, pregnancy and menopause. Who can participate in medical research? Nearly every woman can qualify for a medical research study at some time in her life. Even perfectly healthy people may participate in observational studies and Phase I clinical trials. If you are currently healthy but are at risk for a disease, you may qualify for a prevention study. And if you get sick, you may want to consider entering a clinical trial to test a treatment. Ethics approval All studies involving animals or humans must be approved by an intensive ethics appro
