The masculinization of medical research and its impacts on women's health
Abstract:
Introduction: In the past century, biomedical researches were carried out only with male samples, under the justification that there was a necessity for a subject that would avoid costs with hormonal variations and possible pregnancies. In this logic, the obstinacy to reduce losses contributed to the consolidation of the unfortunate " bikini medicine ", which limited women's health to reproductive issues. Nevertheless, this conceptualization has changed in the last decade, the latent masculinization of medical science still represents a serious impediment in a search of gender and sex equity at this context. Objectives: Conduct an integrative review on the masculinization of medical research and its impacts on women's health. Methods: It is characterized as an integrative literature review. The research was carried out using the descriptors "biomedical research" and "sex specific" and "women’s health", as well as "scientific research", "sex differences" and "women health", in the PubMed and Scientific Electronic Library Online databases (SciELO), in a twenty years’ range (2000-2020), between 10th and 21st June, 2020. Fourteen studies were selected. Results: Through content analysis, it is possible to evidence an increasing number of clinical and pre-clinical studies that demonstrate the genetic differences between men and women in addition to reproductive factors, covering physiological, metabolic and behavioral determinants. However, despite the evidence and the growing discussion on this topic, there is still a major omission of sex reports in medical research. It was still possible to delimit that this originates from the historical male domination in the scientific community, besides the search for a homogeneous study model. This reality perpetuates the latent predominance of the exclusive use of men as sample subjects, implying the underrepresentation of women in studies whose results are applied to both sexes. Conclusion: The masculinization of medical research has repercussions, therefore, in the production of limited knowledge about the biological characteristics inherent to women, as well as in the risk of exposure of this group to therapies whose organic responses are unknown. Indeed, these circumstances reflect an irresponsible medical science and with conclusive answers impossible to generalize.
Key words: sex and gender, medical research, medical science, women’s health.
O contato com a Comissão Científica pode ser rezalizado através do e-mail:
cientifico.comau@fcm.unicamp.br
Ferramenta completa de submissão, avaliação e publicação de anais para eventos científicos.
