NIH to Require Gender Balance in Subjects of Animal Studies

By Paul Basken. The National Institutes of Health announced on Wednesday a new policy requiring that both sexes be represented among the subjects of preclinical biomedical research it finances involving animal and cell models. More than two decades after requiring gender balance among human beings in the trials themselves, NIH leaders said they now realize that the same step should be applied to the laboratory experiments that inform those trials. The policy reflects a widespread recognition of differences in how men and women differ in their responses to medical treatments, the NIH’s director, Francis S. Collins, and the director of the NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health, Janine A. Clayton, wrote in an article in Nature announcing the policy. More...