Irving Zucker

Women are overmedicated and experience adverse drug pharmaceutical reactions almost twice as often as men because clinical trials are typically male-dominated, according to a new study. Scientists at UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago found that sex bias in clinical trials means the US Food and Drugs Administration is often approving drugs - and determining correct dosages - based predominantly upon their observed effects on men, without taking into account the possibility that others might react differently to the substance. Irving Zucker, lead study author and a professor emeritus of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, said in a statement that "when it comes to prescribing drugs, a one-size-fits-all approach, based on male-dominated clinical trials, is not working, and women are getting the short end of the stick." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.