Science podcast: Can gender diversity create better medicine?

The Swiss Connection science podcast SWI swissinfo.ch

Women have always taken medicine but very rarely has this medicine been developed with women’s bodies in mind. This has had serious consequences for women’s health. There’s a movement to change this in many countries including Switzerland.

Subscribe

Subscribe to

Close

• Apple PodcastsExternal link
• SpotifyExternal link
• Amazon MusicExternal link
• Podcast IndexExternal link
• OvercastExternal link
• YouTubeExternal link
• iHeartRadioExternal link
• PandoraExternal link
• Podcast AddictExternal link
• CastroExternal link
• CastboxExternal link
• PodchaserExternal link
• Pocket CastsExternal link
• DeezerExternal link
• Listen NotesExternal link
• Player FMExternal link
• GoodpodsExternal link
• True FansExternal link
• Buzzsprout RSS Feed External link Copy RSS Feed link Copied Failed to copy

In this episode of ‘The Swiss Connection’External link science podcast our healthcare journalist Jessica Davis Plüss investigated why sex and gender have been ignored in drug development and why this is so hard to change.

Although women accountExternal link for 70% of chronic pain patients, 80% of pain studiesExternal link are conducted only on men or male mice. Men still dominate many clinical trials for diseases that disproportionally affect women.

Rarely are study results broken down by sex and gender and reported publicly. When they are, differences in the efficacy and safety for men and women are rarely considered in the approval and prescribing information for drugs.

The situation is changing in Switzerland. The country has revised its clinical trials law to ensure more gender balance in research and it also announced its first full professor in gender medicine at the University of Zurich.

But progress around the world has been hitting roadblocks.

Join Jessica Davis Plüss on the new season of ‘The Swiss Connection’External link for a discussion about the role of sex and gender in drug development.

Find out more about the ‘The Swiss Connection’ science podcast and our other Swiss podcasts in English here, on Apple PodcastsExternal link, or SpotifyExternal link.