Behind every slogan is a world of detail that the social media universe fails to understand. Why have nuance, when you can have outrage? Why offer explanation, when you can offer anger? Why help people be smarter, when you can do the opposite? One of these slogans, that I hear far too much, is the claim that – “Women were excluded from clinical drug trials until 1993!” And yes, generally that is true. But what is so often missing is: which women, from what phases, and most importantly – why? Was such exclusion done for good reasons, or malicious ones? Was it intended to harm women, or was it intended to protect them? Was there anything that happened, to precipitate such a decision? Well, we cannot know the answers until we are willing to understand the context – which is usually the first thing to fall by the wayside, when such discussions occur… So why were women excluded from drug trials? Which women? And from what phases? Let’s talk about it… ~ Sex of participants in NIH funded research

2026-09-07