Does the US spend more Money Researching diseases affecting men?

Does the U.S. spend more money researching diseases that primarily affect men? The answer is emphatically yes, according to an article published in the Journal of Women’s Health by Art Mirin, chair of #MEAction’s California State Chapter.

In his research, Dr. Mirin found that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gives a disproportionate share of its resources to diseases that primarily affect men, at the expense of those that affect primarily women. In nearly three-quarters of the cases where a disease afflicts primarily one sex, the funding pattern favors men – and at twice the funding rate! 

Dr. Mirin analysed the allocation of funds across diseases, and normalized the funding level to disease burden (measured by the Disability Adjusted Life Year). His team categorized a disease as being over-funded if its actual funding exceeded the burden-commensurate value, and under-funded if its actual funding was less.

Of all of the diseases in the NIH portfolio, ME/CFS is the lowest funded disease relative to disease burden by the NIH, and 75 percent of those afflicted are women. 

“Gender bias has been an ongoing issue in health care and has manifested itself in a number of different ways,” wrote Dr. Mirin. “Other examples include the underrepresentation of women in health studies, the trivialization of women’s complaints, and discrimination in the awarding of research grants.”

Jennifer Brea’s TED Talk calling for healthcare providers to believe women and not continue to dismiss them as hysterical struck a chord with Dr. Mirin after doing the research on gender disparity for himself.  

Set Aside Funding, NIH! 

Dr. Mirin said he has no reason to believe that NIH is intentionally short-changing women – rather that we are seeing the result of a structural gender bias, and the first step to change is acknowledging the problem. 

 “The most effective way for NIH to respond to funding disparities, be they based on gender or something else, is to remedy the situation by setting aside funding,” said Mirin. “As we have argued vis-à-vis ME/CFS, a similar approach will likely be needed to address gender disparity.”  

Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Email

Latest News

redish square image with the US Capitol photo with a red overlay on top of it. The words Congress is hearing from us. Then the MEAction logo in the center bottom.

#MEAction: Congress Is Hearing from Us

#MEAction has been hard at work connecting individuals to their elected officials to talk about the ME/CFS Research Roadmap, Medicaid, and telehealth.  We’ve been partnering with #NotJustFatigue on setting up congressional meetings in order to ask our elected officials for their support in making funding of the ME/CFS Research Roadmap a reality. #MEAction State Chapter

Read More »
blackish rectangle with the words, MEAction Georgia Volunteer - Maggie Boxey- at TEDxOjia with the meaction logo in the bottom right corner.

#MEAction Georgia Volunteer, Maggie Boxey, Speaks at TEDxOjai

#MEAction Georgia recently had a huge accomplishment. Maggie Boxey, who is a member of the Georgia State Chapter, a Navy veteran, and a published author, recently gave a Tedx talk about her experience as a person with ME. Maggie was diagnosed a year ago but has been sick since 2020. Before becoming sick Maggie and

Read More »

SOS: Save our Science

People disabled by ME and Long Covid across the UK send out an SOS.  It’s time to send out our SOS signal, if we want to have funded research. May 12th is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Awareness Day. On this day, the #MillionsMissing with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) gather to demand an increase in research and care for

Read More »
Scroll to Top