I remember article about how lack of proper sex-differences including tests led FDA to allow a drug (whose name elude me, though, IIRC it was one of sleep drugs) onto market... But the females were much more susceptible to it, leading to a numerous cases of overdosing.
Sounds like Ambien.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Racist biology is political s%&+ layered on biological research. However, just as an example, we know that there is a far higher genetic variability among people with more recent roots in Africa (such as the American black population) than other populations, thereby giving them a greater risk of idiopathic side effects of various types of medication. Is this racist science?One of my pet peeves is that this direction of research has been discouraged or suppressed because it can be labelled "racist" or otherwise bigoted. The end results are actually a heck of a lot more racist and result in poorer medical care for minority populations.
This is equally true with regards to research into LGBT issues. Good science is good science, and pursuing it ultimately means that we get a higher standard of medical care. Yes, it really would be a good thing to better understand the biology of homosexuality, transgender and non binary gender conditions. Likewise the biology behind medically relevant heritable traits in human groups that evolved in different geographical regions and environments. because that information is highly relevant to giving those populations the best possible medical care.
If your ancestors evolved in an environment rich in plant alkaloids, you will metabolize alkaloid drugs much more quickly than someone whose ancestors did not come from such a region. If doctors are prevented from knowing or using information like this because some idiot politician thinks that racial profiling in medicine is somehow wrong or bigoted, that does real and serious harm to the population that is supposedly being protected.
Can information be misused? Sure. But saying it shouldn't exist because it can be used to hurt people is sort of like telling people that they should ban electricity and sit in the dark so that no one might get hurt by it.
I understand where you're coming from, and as Kelsey Arwen MacAilbert pointed out, cisgender men are considered the "normal baseline" for drug research. Even when using animals like rats for studies, male rats are used for the baseline unless the study is specifically looking at pregnancy or menstrual effects or some such (and sometimes female rats are given hysterectomies in order to use them as a closer-to-male baseline, to account for menstrual hormones).
So that's one thing. Should we be investigating the specific medical needs of groups whose needs have been traditionally ignored or considered Other and nonstandard? Yeah, that's a worthy aim.
However, many of those groups have tense and historically hostile relations with medical research institutions. What comes to mind most readily is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, a 40-year-long experiment conducted by the U.S. government in which 400 black men in the rural south were told they were receiving free health care. In reality, they were secretly infected with syphilis in order to study the effects of the disease, and denied treatment for it even after penicillin was found to be effective at such. There are numerous other examples on the Wikipedia article about Unethical human experimentation in the United States, and a quick overview (at least when it comes to disease research) reveals that most of the people who were subject to secret, deliberate infection for research are those who were most vulnerable, largely those who were poor, non-white, mentally ill, sex workers, prisoners, and/or non-male.
Sure, we can write this off as "bad science," but it's bad not because it's racist pseudo-science trying to justify eugenics or even Social Darwinism--it's bad science because it violates scientific ethics, despite ostensibly producing scientifically accurate data. So can you really blame people--at least those who have been traditionally vulnerable to unethical research--for being suspicious of certain kinds of research? There are people who think that the FBI introduced crack to black neighborhoods, and that the U.S. government invented AIDS. And that sounds ridiculous, but only because we have an idea of the origin of those thing, not because the U.S. government isn't evil enough to do it.
It's just one of the realities of human experimentation that far fewer women are dumb enough to take experimental medication for the price of a pizza.
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It's just one of the realities of human experimentation that far fewer women are dumb enough to take experimental medication for the price of a pizza.
Yeah, no.
Women have been systematically excluded from medical research not because they weren't willing to participate, but because the people doing the research didn't want them in test groups. Even today, some drugs are tested on all-male groups because the researchers don't want to accidentally test on pregnant women.
It's just one of the realities of human experimentation that far fewer women are dumb enough to take experimental medication for the price of a pizza.Yeah, no.
Women have been systematically excluded from medical research not because they weren't willing to participate, but because the people doing the research didn't want them in test groups. Even today, some drugs are tested on all-male groups because the researchers don't want to accidentally test on pregnant women.
So how do you get drug companies to take that risk? Mandate percentages, set up an insurance fund?
Getting meds approved for pregnancy is a long, scary road.
...but men and women are not so different that what is safe for men is likely to be horribly unsafe for women.
If you require medical companies to test their stuff on women, it's going to mean they either get them to sign waivers, pay them more and put them on injected contraceptives, or they will go under due to lawsuits.
I don't know if either of the two first are okay, but I know the third is not a good idea. I am sure we don't really want them to focus on third world women instead.
MechaPoet: Someone setting up something like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment nowadays without the advantage of serious classification due to state powers would be destroyed by fines, and probably sent to Haag. Can we please accept that unless it's the state acting (and yes, it is evil enough), it is a different world these days?
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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MechaPoet: Someone setting up something like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment nowadays without the advantage of serious classification due to state powers would be destroyed by fines, and probably sent to Haag. Can we please accept that unless it's the state acting (and yes, it is evil enough), it is a different world these days?
Is the world different? Yes. But are discriminatory and poorly informed studies and medical procedures still performed? Also yes. For example, did Sweden perform forced sterilization as a form of eugenics up until 2012? Also yes.
EDIT: Although, I guess that falls under the actions of a state government? For a more pertinent example: in many states, trans people are required to undergo extensive therapy before they can be approved for hormonal treatment. There are enough instances of psychologists and psychiatrists mistreating and invalidating the genders of their patients (intentionally or otherwise) that there are a fair amount of trans people with less-than-trusting relationships to science and medicine.| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've worked in preclinical drug development and metabolic testing for a decade, so I have a good idea of industry standards for testing new drugs. I'll have more to say tonight about the nuance here for testing parameters, race, gender, etc to give an overview of where the science is right now.
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Forced sterilization for transsexuals until 2012, yes. For eugenic purposes, not really. I never once heard the argument that "we should sterilize all those who change sex because then we will make the human species better" or anything similar. It was a bunch of conservatives claiming that "sex-changed should not have children because that is really weird to have a parent of the opposite sex to what he/she used to be". Not all that much better, but it's far from eugenics. Plus, as you say, it's an exercise of state powers, a very unregulated field that is likely going to remain so.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Sorry, I was speaking more generally. The eugenics part was part of Sweden's broader history of forced sterilization, which has included sterilization for reasons of race and disability.
Related fact: did you know that (in the United States at least), non-heterosexual and non-cisgender people have slightly higher occurrence among non-white populations?
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I've worked in preclinical drug development and metabolic testing for a decade, so I have a good idea of industry standards for testing new drugs. I'll have more to say tonight about the nuance here for testing parameters, race, gender, etc to give an overview of where the science is right now.
During the preclinical period you can do extensive metabolic profiling of target compounds in order to identify the specific enzymes in the liver responsible for their metabolism (grouped into Phase I and Phase II enzymes). Many enzymes are rather evolutionarily conserved so the species doesn't matter as much for some at this point, so using rats or mice can be considerably cheaper to use in order to rule out certain drugs before spending millions to start human trials.
You're just looking for broad results at this point, so often the standard historically speaking has been one of a number of highly inbred Norwegian Brown rats (specifically Sprague-Dawley, Wistar, or Long Evans, among others). Male rats have typically been exclusively used at this stage given that you're just looking for very broad results. If you're looking for more specific things, you can use different lines or female animals for a particular study for a specific compound.
For instance if you find that a drug is specifically metabolized by the Cytochrome P4503A4 enzyme in the liver, you can already plan for it complicating the intake of other drugs with similar profiles (such as the statin class of drugs).
Also, I'm referring to only in-vitro testing here, not in-vivo. You typically isolate and plate hepatocytes within a collagen matrix for drug compound investigation (or freeze for later use).
Monkey and dog are also commonly used at this stage because they're relatively cheap by comparison to human cells. You can get human cells from liver tissue discarded after surgery or whole livers donated for research due to factors that rule them out for live transplantation. Human hepatocytes are the gold standard here, both cultured in suspension or plated. Since they come from individual people with their own metabolic profile, this is all mapped out prior to being used in research so we know of any non-standard polymorphisms showing up in their liver enzymes that would impact metabolism, transport, etc.
In my experience, we sold roughly equal numbers of male and female hepatocytes to drug companies doing their own in-house testing. They aren't under any constraints for risking teratogenic activity in unknowingly pregnant female test subjects at this point, so they can get lots of data for a broad population, and they do, and they pay through the nose for it because it prevents more expense and safety issues later.
Race is also a genuine factor in drug dosage. The idea of race of course is on somewhat arbitrary lines admittedly, but you do find specific CYP polymorphisms that map along ethnic origins. As an example, CYP2D6 is an enzyme involved in the metabolism of around a quarter of all drugs on the market today, and a number of polymorphisms in 2D6 cause very low metabolism of those drugs. About 8% or so of patients of European heritage have low 2D6 activity, the African-American population shows a much higher prevalence of this, while patients of Asian heritage don't commonly show this. There are lots of situations like this that really impact how drugs are prescribed and dosed for people on a population scale.
Of course the ideal situation is to do personalized dosage of a drug for every individual by determining the genes and expression levels of each person's phase I and II enzymes. We aren't quite there yet, but that's the goal and it's within reach.
This is current practice in the industry. We're no longer in the dark ages of assuming that male and female biology is absolutely exactly the same. We now increasingly see fewer drug companies thinking that they can save money and not test on one gender or the other. There's a lot going on and we need to gather as much data as we can to insure patient health as a primary objective, tailoring studies to the drug and population (or individual) in question.
That was long winded, but hopefully gives an idea of how we go about drug testing at the earliest stages now.
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Getting meds approved for pregnancy is a long, scary road.
Yes, but that's not the point.
The point is all women aren't pregnant all the time, and we have pregnancy tests. "But women can get pregnant!" is not a valid reason not to release drugs onto the market without having tested them on women.
And Sissyl, sometimes we ARE different enough that there are serious consequences to treating the male body as the human default.
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About 8% or so of patients of European heritage have low 2D6 activity
I wonder if that's why I always roll so low on my greatsword damage?
*rimshot*
Getting meds approved for pregnancy is a long, scary road.Yes, but that's not the point.
The point is all women aren't pregnant all the time, and we have pregnancy tests. "But women can get pregnant!" is not a valid reason not to release drugs onto the market without having tested them on women.
And Sissyl, sometimes we ARE different enough that there are serious consequences to treating the male body as the human default.
That is why I wrote "usually". Also, see Todd's beautiful summary above. Also also, part of the problem is how far you can go in checking women for pregnancy. At some point, if a pregnancy is discovered, the company has already been treating an embryo with their drug, see?
I would like to add that the CYP2D6 variability is rather specific. See, once upon a time, a tiny group of people decided to cross the Gibraltar and get out of Africa. Their descendants settled the rest of the world. However, due to how small populations work, the result was that the farther away they came, the lesser the genetic variability. So, European populations had a bit, but Asians, Australian Aboriginals, Native Americans, Inuits, and others, had very little. The crossing of the Gibraltar wasn't that long ago, evolution-wise, so these groups did not accumulate the mutations and such that would increase their genetic variability. One of the specific variabilities that follow this is the CYP2D6 variability. Since it's a metabolic enzyme in the liver we're discussing, the result is that the further the individual is from our African ancestors, the less variability of the serum levels of various CYP2D6 drugs, or otherwise put, it's more difficult to predict dosages for Africans.
As I understand it, this lower variability in other genes were the reason the native Americans were decimated by smallpox - their few tissue antigen types happened to be vulnerable, and they did not have the variability or the history of evolutionary pressure for that disease that the European invaders had.
Sorry, I was speaking more generally. The eugenics part was part of Sweden's broader history of forced sterilization, which has included sterilization for reasons of race and disability.
Related fact: did you know that (in the United States at least), non-heterosexual and non-cisgender people have slightly higher occurrence among non-white populations?
The link does not make it clear that eugenics sterilizations ended in 1975, which is a pretty significant fact in the debate. After that, it was just the transsexuals, as above.
As for the related fact, is your conclusion that the eugenics programs have worked, or something else?
I believe this is something that we can all agree is completely idiotic. I don't follow, nor care about sports, but still...
Getting meds approved for pregnancy is a long, scary road.Yes, but that's not the point.
The point is all women aren't pregnant all the time, and we have pregnancy tests. "But women can get pregnant!" is not a valid reason not to release drugs onto the market without having tested them on women.
of course not!
However pregnancy trials, such as they are, are scary. Very much so. That's all I was saying.
Meds need to take race into consideration as well, and that isn't scary as much as it is a surprisingly difficult undertaking - something I'm working on currently, actually.
About 8% or so of patients of European heritage have low 2D6 activityI wonder if that's why I always roll so low on my greatsword damage?
*rimshot*
get off the stage!
The brain is, in a very real sense, everything you are, your world, your self... If it doesn't happen in your brain, it doesn't happen, period. This is obvious, but still a difficult pill to swallow for so many. I never doubted gender happens in the brain, and no, not just in the thought processes as many seem to believe, but deep in the hardware. Just like most things that make us us.
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As a straight cis male, I find it difficult to understand the whole trans thing. One of the reasons I read this thread is to try to learn.
For most people, it's 'obvious' that your genitalia defines your gender! Reading this thread, there is plenty of testimony to the contrary. So how do I reconcile these ideas?
I'll try a thought experiment: imagine I had my brain transplanted into the body of a woman. Say...Marie Avgeropoulos (Google her, you'll understand) (Hey! It's my thought experiment, I can choose whoever I want!).
So, my brain, her body. Do I think that I'm really female now, or am I a male trapped in a female body?
Well, when I can finally get my hands out of my shirt, I'll probably conclude that the 'real me' is male, and seek to return to my real, male body. Yep, I'll be making that effort to return very soon. Any time now...
Wait, what was my point? Oh, yes! I think I've got my head around the idea that gender is defined by the brain rather than the body.
Of course, this is only a thought experiment. We really need to do the actual experiment to get real data.
Does anyone have Marie's number and a first aid kit?
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The other end of that equation is also somewhat interesting. Say you excise her brain out of her skull. Complete removal. The body is kept alive waiting for the brain transplant. What does she experience? Not much, right? Experiencing anything absolutely requires a brain. So, why do people insist that their thoughts, personalities, skills, abilities, memories, tastes etc would NOT be seen in their brains? I mean, Descartes divided us into body, mind and spirit... but that was a serious while ago, and was done for purely political reasons. Can we please let him rest now?
Last night's episode of EMPIRE featured in part a black man coming out. It was beautiful, painful, and brave, especially in the face of his stereotypically disapproving black father.
I teared up, I admit it.
It made me think of my own father, whose good friend was gay, growing up in panama, playing baseball. Someone tried to assault his friend. Dad beat the crap out of the guy and reassured his friend that he(along with many of their shared friends) knew he was gay, and it was cool with everyone. My dad is in his 80s now, for time reference.
Note -EMPIRE is essentially DALLAS with a lot more black people, a lot less oil, and a lot more music. For some people it may be triggery as the show pulls no punches- it's a black American tv show so there is a lot of DRAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, which may not be approved for all audiences. My favorite character is the oldest son, who has married a white woman against his father's wishes, and is quite bipolar and power hungry -the actor that plays him is AMAZING.
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Caught this on the tumblr's:
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding transgender issues because they try to see themselves as trans, but come at it from the wrong direction. i.e. a cis woman tries to understand transness by going, “what if I felt like/wanted to be a man” when she should be approaching it as “what if I, a woman, was so easily mistaken for a man that I had to pretend to be one”,And I think this is something to keep in mind and to explain away when trying to get these matters across to people who’re new to the idea.
Caught this on the tumblr's:
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding transgender issues because they try to see themselves as trans, but come at it from the wrong direction. i.e. a cis woman tries to understand transness by going, “what if I felt like/wanted to be a man” when she should be approaching it as “what if I, a woman, was so easily mistaken for a man that I had to pretend to be one”,And I think this is something to keep in mind and to explain away when trying to get these matters across to people who’re new to the idea.
I just saw that too, like two minutes ago. I think it's pretty good.
Curious to hear from cis people if trying to think about it that way does anything to increase their understanding of us.
It is pretty good. It is a different approach, and that is always good. However, my own thought is that my experience of my gender is so utterly central to who I am that it's absolutely no great stretch to imagine the anguish if it didn't match my body.
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The other end of that equation is also somewhat interesting. Say you excise her brain out of her skull. Complete removal. The body is kept alive waiting for the brain transplant. What does she experience? Not much, right? Experiencing anything absolutely requires a brain. So, why do people insist that their thoughts, personalities, skills, abilities, memories, tastes etc would NOT be seen in their brains? I mean, Descartes divided us into body, mind and spirit... but that was a serious while ago, and was done for purely political reasons. Can we please let him rest now?
The Greeks are really the ones who cut everyone's head off, so the blame doesn't rest totally with poor Descartes. ;-)
Where is fancy bred?
In the heart, or in the head?
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Trans* teen Jazz Jennings to do Clean & Clear ad campaign.
Cause Trans* people get pimples too, yo.
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On a completely unrelated note, I'm just starting my journey for bariatric surgery. My initial weigh in was 372. 26 days later I'm down to 362. I still have 5 months before the surgery. There are a lot of changes I have to make. The good news is that I should have a bikini body by next summer!
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Bob, two things not always well understood or well informed about:
Gastric bypass for a person with a comfort eating behaviour will put that person without a serious part of their anxiety relief strategies. Be aware of it and work your hardest to find alternatives, preferably before the surgery. Exercise, sex, reading, keeping busy are good places to start.
Second thing is quite serious. Many of the people above turn to alcohol to relieve stress. That turns very ugly very fast - so ban alcohol. The surgery also makes you a lot more sensitive to it, sometimes to the level of getting floored by one drink. Adjust accordingly.
It is pretty good. It is a different approach, and that is always good. However, my own thought is that my experience of my gender is so utterly central to who I am that it's absolutely no great stretch to imagine the anguish if it didn't match my body.What I actually have a difficult personal time understanding is how gender can be so central to anyone's self-identity, because it is not really part of mine. I get that it is central to other people, even if I can't understand it at a gut level. But the part I really don't get is how people are obsessed with gendering other people, not just themselves.
Why does anyone need to know my gender or treat me in gendered ways or use gendered language to describe me? The whole thing just weirds me out. I have no answers to give about my gender identity that fit into a binary, and that makes life pretty uncomfy in a world that is so intensively focused on gendering everyone and everything.
Gender is shorthand. Finding someone's gender is a quick way (through our prejudices) to determine a lot of things about someone. The thing is, it often works perfectly. Not getting this shorthand makes people uncertain about a person, leaving them with no predetermined scale to start with. Not saying it's right, but it's the process involved.
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Take it from somebody who's seen multiple members of her family use alcohol as a coping mechanism - it almost never ends well. I have enough depression issues and stress not to mess with that. I do love my liquor, but I only drink when I'm in a good mood. Like when watching really stupid SyFy movies. Those are pretty much tailor made for drunkenly mocking with a group of friends.
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Why does anyone need to know my gender or treat me in gendered ways or use gendered language to describe me? The whole thing just weirds me out. I have no answers to give about my gender identity that fit into a binary, and that makes life pretty uncomfy in a world that is so intensively focused on gendering everyone and everything.
Do you think that part of it, part of it, is that humans are sexual creatures, constantly and subconsciously assessing everyone they meet to see if that person is up for it, assuming that they are attracted to that gender?
Given that most people (there are exceptions) limit themselves to one particular gender, then knowing the gender of the person you meet is crucial information when it comes to how you interact, both consciously or subconsciously.
Thoughts?
All due respect, that comes off as rather passive aggressive.
Why does anyone need to know my gender or treat me in gendered ways or use gendered language to describe me? The whole thing just weirds me out. I have no answers to give about my gender identity that fit into a binary, and that makes life pretty uncomfy in a world that is so intensively focused on gendering everyone and everything.Do you think that part of it, part of it, is that humans are sexual creatures, constantly and subconsciously assessing everyone they meet to see if that person is up for it, assuming that they are attracted to that gender?
Given that most people (there are exceptions) limit themselves to one particular gender, then knowing the gender of the person you meet is crucial information when it comes to how you interact, both consciously or subconsciously.
Thoughts?
I guess that would be less of a problem if the third person pronoun were gender neutral in English like it is in Finnish.
"it"
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"it"
If the 'it' is the 'it' in the phrase 'part of it', 'it' refers to the 'need to know my gender or treat me in gendered ways or use gendered language to describe me'.
So 'part of it' means 'part of the reason that we need to know a person's gender'.
BTW, I'm not suggesting that the reason I gave was an ideal, but simply a partial explanation of why most people, subconsciously, feel the need to assign a gender to a person with whom they interact.
This doesn't mean that this behavior is 'right', or to be admired.
On the other hand, if the 'it' to which you refer is from the phrase 'up for it', then 'up for it' in this context means 'willing to pursue a sexual or romantic relationship'.
'It' does not refer to any person, if that's what you're thinking.
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There's no worries about me drinking excessive alcohol. I don't drink. I'm working on all the things that make me eat when I shouldn't. That's why they want me to see a nutritionist for 6 months before I can even do the surgery. I also have a psychiatrist that I am working with. I'm going to be ready in August.