Vancouver Sun - Research use of only male mice is 'unacceptable,' expert sasys

It's time to end the "unacceptable" practice of using only male mice in basic medical research, because the results may not apply to human females, McGill University pain-research expert Jeffrey Mogil said Tuesday.

The only reason the practice continues, he told the first national conference on gender and health, is "simple inertia" on the part of "big-shot scientists who have spent their entire careers working on male rats." Mogil's comments at the Innovations in Gender, Sex, and Health Research conference were echoed by other leading researchers who urged that the "X factor" be taken into account in biomedical research into potential new treatments.