Taxpayer money funds medical research that studies males more than females

INTRO:

Your tax dollars help pay for a lot of different federally-funded industries.

One of them is medical research – a billion-dollar industry that looks for cures and answers to fight diseases.

But the agency that receives the most federal dollars in the industry is fighting a big issue.

TV2’s Kaitlynn LeBeau explains how an area of medical research is studying men more than women.

 

When you pay your taxes or pick up a prescription from your local pharmacy, those dollars you spend help fund medical research.

Public money helps create billions of dollars in federal grants as well as awards at the state level, like those issued by the Ohio Third Frontier.

More than $140 billion in federal money was budgeted for research and development in the 2013 fiscal year.

But a big part of the population is often left out of an important step in this billion-dollar industry.

The National Institutes of Health issued a press release stating there is a lack of female subjects in preclinical trials…and that this could be affecting medical findings. This is often referred to as gender bias.

To address the issue of gender bias in laboratory research, the NIH is distributing $10.1 million in grants to more than 80 scientists for biomedical research.

The funds will help researchers to expand their studies and include more female representation – this means more female animals, like mice, and cells.

Many of the institutions already in the supplement program are universities. Dr. Grant McGimpsey, Vice President of Research and Sponsored Programs at Kent State, said the proposal process for this $10 million dollar grant, like any research grant, will be competitive.

Dr. McGimpsey also made it a point that there are also several federal agencies that specifically target women’s health issues.

Dr. Grant McGimpsey, Vice President of Research and Sponsored Programs at Kent State, talks about how competitive it is for universities to acquire research grants.

TAG: 

This program began in the fiscal year 2013 under leadership from the Office of Research on Women’s Health, according to the NIH.

Those initial supplements totaled $4.6 million, bringing the new total with this year’s supplements to $14.7 million in investments.