Women and Health Research: Ethical and Legal Issues of Including Women in Clinical Studies

Women and Health Research: Ethical and Legal Issues of Including Women in Clinical Studies, vol 2: Workshop and Commissioned Papers, edited by Anna C. Mastroianni, Ruth Faden, and Daniel Federman (Committee on the Ethical and Legal Issues Relating to the Inclusion of Women in Clinical Studies, Institute of Medicine), 247 pp, paper 29, ISBN 0-309-05040-5, Washington, DC, National Academy Press, 1994. Twenty years ago, in the wake of the thalidomide and diethylstilbestrol (DES) disasters, it became unthinkable to include women of childbearing age in clinical research. Today, with the women's health movement protesting a lack of attention to women's medical problems, it has become unthinkable not to include them. Responding to this dramatic reversal, the National Institute of Health's (NIH) Institute of Medicine in September 1992 convened a 16-member Committee on the Ethical and Legal Issues Relating to the Inclusion of Women in Clinical Studies. Women and Health Research, volume