The Importance of Women's Health; Women's Health; Scientific American Presents; by Staff Editors; 4 Page(s)

Securing the right to vote, controlling fertility, earning (almost) equal pay for equal work-to this list of milestones for women, add one more: being included in all federally financed health studies. In 1993 Congress passed the equivalent of the Equal Rights Amendment for medical research: a law mandating that women be part of all studies that receive funding from The Importance of Women's Health the National Institutes of Health and that women be included in the final stages of all clinical trials of new drugs, unless there is some compelling medical reason they shouldn't be

For many years, women were not systematically included in biomedical research and clinical trials, in part because of concern that if women became pregnant during the course of the study, the fetus might be harmed. Unfortunately, though, the policy meant that researchers simply did not know certain facts about women's health.