Research Minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) has announced plans for a massive expansion of medical research focusing on female bodies, initiating several new steps nationwide. Speaking to RTL and ntv, she revealed that a new funding guideline is effective immediately. This policy aims to ensure that anatomical differences between male and female bodies are addressed in a gender-sensitive manner, even within fields like cancer research.
Bär highlighted that medicine has historically treated the male body as the primary standard of measure. She described the resulting gap in funding as “gigantic” stating that it is “very dangerous” to diagnose and treat women in hospitals using protocols designed for men, arguing that female bodies are fundamentally different from simply “small male bodies”.
For instance, she pointed out that, on average, it takes more than an hour for a heart attack in a woman to be recognized as such compared to a man. She stressed the profound implications of this delay, noting that this single hour can often decide the difference between life and death.
Initial funding initiatives have already commenced, particularly in the research surrounding Endometriosis, a condition affecting an estimated ten to 15 percent of all women. The severity of the disease is described as dramatic, sometimes leading to unwanted infertility. To better address this, Bär explained that researchers are investigating whether a diagnosis must always rely on surgery. They are currently testing whether it is possible to achieve a diagnosis using samples from urine or blood.