"I don’t understand why you would want to change a policy that clearly has had a positive impact," one doctor of neuroscience has commented.
Brain Experts: Medical Research Could Exclude More Than 50% of the Population
Published on Feb. 25, 2025
You know all the progress that’s been made in areas like better understanding female heart attacks, managing menopause symptoms, and why Alzheimer’s rates are higher among women? An under-the-radar new report hints that federal organizations are preparing to shift focus away from studies that focus specifically on female health.
Amid swiftly changing policies and guidance from the Trump administration—including an ongoing court battle over proposed research funding cuts for the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)—on Monday, February 24, the online neuroscience publication The Transmitter published an exclusive report, pointing out that new phrasing on some webpages for the NIH seems to suggest that the organization may be moving away from guaranteeing that medical research covers both males and females in animal studies. As the report states: “The move could signal a shift away from research that considers the roles of sex and gender in biology and health, several neuroscientists told The Transmitter.”
U.S. Census Bureau data suggests females make up 50.5% of the nation’s population and 58.7% of the civilian labor force. September 2024 numbers from the World Atlas say women comprise greater than 51% of the population in the following states:
- Alabama 51.50%
- Mississippi 51.47%
- Delaware 51.43%
- South Carolina 51.35%
- Maryland 51.27%
- Georgia 51.21%
- North Carolina 51.12%
- New York 51.07%
- Massachusetts 51.02%
- Louisiana 51.02%
Though The Transmitter does not link to any specific pages, it reports that “The phrase ‘Historic document published prior to January 20, 2025’” can now be found on several NIH-run webpages “that pertain to its long-standing policy on research into sex differences.”
Citing a 2016 policy by the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, The Transmitter explains that NIH-funded researchers are required to “include both males and females in their vertebrate animal studies or explain why they don’t.”
The Transmitter also notes that important medical discoveries in the neuroscience space have been achieved since the 2016 change to include sex differences in research. Georgia State Institute neuroscience professor Anne Z. Murphy, PhD, commented for the report: “I just felt my heart sink when I saw that—I don’t understand why you would want to change a policy that clearly has had a positive impact on the integrity and reproducibility of basic science studies.” The Transmitter reports Dr. Murphy served on the subcommittee that helped formulate the original policy. “Abandoning the policy would ‘put us back in the dark ages in terms of our science,'” The Transmitter quotes Dr. Murphy saying.
This news comes less than a week after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in a guidance that it would only be recognizing two sexes (male and female) moving forward, saying the HHS will “use these definitions and promote policies acknowledging that women are biologically female and men are biologically male.” Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, has removed information related to women’s health from sections of its website.
The NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health’s website currently includes a section dedicated to “Sex as a Biological Variable,” which discusses the importance of including women in clinical research. “An over-reliance on male animals and cells may obscure understanding of key sex influences on health processes and outcomes,” says the webpage.
The HHS is now under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was confirmed as Secretary of the HHS on February 13. The department oversees the NIH, in addition to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, among others.
There have also been reports just this month that the NIH has been looking into grants that list certain words, including “women,” “Covid,” trans,” and “diversity.” One argument from critics is that some scientific laboratories have already had to cut highly qualified researchers, while fundraising professionals at major universities are reporting an immediate halt on admissions into their doctorate programs. The Trump administration has also run into recent legal challenges for efforts to end federal ties to many diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
No official announcement has been made yet by the NIH in regard to this perceived change first covered by The Transmitter.
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