In their eye-opening book Bad Treatments: Why Women Get Bad Treatment, journalists Delphine Bauer and Arianne Puccini expose decades of health scandals where women have consistently been the primary victims. "Dépakine, Mediator, Distilbène, Agréal, Essure, Levothyrox... Medications targeted at women dominate the pharmaceutical scandals of the past 60 years," lament the independent journalists, Delphine Bauer and Arianne Puccini. Members of the Youpress collective, which focuses on women's rights and health, they issued this urgent alert through their book (ed. Seuil, Oct. 2020).
Marie Claire: What prompted you to compile these health scandals into a book, and what’s your goal?
Delphine Bauer: "Our goal was to highlight women's overrepresentation in recent drug scandals—and those spanning decades. We started with a straightforward observation: women dominated the victim lists in nearly every case we investigated. We found just one instance of a male-targeted drug causing severe side effects.
This led us to question whether side effects were disproportionately a 'women's issue.' Was it coincidence, or something systemic disadvantaging women? We traced the full drug lifecycle—from conception and production to prescription and administration—then examined the battles women wage, from individual struggles to collective legal fights."
Video of the day:Arianne Puccini: "We aimed to provide a comprehensive view of women's health challenges, revealing how medical preconceptions and contexts often work against them. Since medicine is central to Western healthcare, this book uncovers the biological and social factors shaping patient care."
Why are women more vulnerable to drug side effects than men today?
Delphine Bauer: "Women's and men's bodies metabolize drugs differently due to variations in body composition. Women typically have higher body fat, and factors like weight and height influence how quickly a drug works, lingers, and is eliminated. For instance, women need only half the flu vaccine dose men do because their immune response is faster. Aspirin also targets different organs in men versus women."
Can you cite examples of clinical trials excluding women?
Delphine Bauer: "Our book details several, including the near-total exclusion of women from early antiretroviral (anti-HIV) trials—AIDS was long seen as a 'male disease,' despite women now accounting for half of cases. Women are also underrepresented in cardiac trials, even though heart disease is their leading killer. Shockingly, 'female Viagra' was tested primarily on men—for a drug aimed at women!"
"We identified numerous trials excluding women, despite drugs being marketed to them or being essential."
Pregnant women remain overlooked in drug testing...
Arianne Puccini: "Including pregnant women in trials is challenging, scarred by the Thalidomide tragedy of the 1950s-60s, which caused severe birth defects and revealed teratogenic risks. Public outrage led to a blanket policy against exposing pregnant women to trials.
Consequently, pre-market data on pregnant women is scarce—we rely on post-market observations requiring massive cohorts and computing power, only feasible since the 1990s. Yet, 70% of pregnant women take medications, highlighting a critical data gap."
How is data on adverse reactions utilized?
Arianne Puccini: "France's Social Security tracks prescriptions via Carte Vitale, feeding data to Uppsala, the WHO's pharmacovigilance hub. Women report 56% of side effects in France, but French research underuses this goldmine. With Prescrire magazine's help, we found two-thirds of reimbursed dangerous drugs are prescribed over 60% to women. Ignoring this data risks overdosing or mistargeted effects."
What is 'victim blaming,' prevalent in Canada?
Delphine Bauer: "Victim blaming shifts responsibility to the sufferer. In the Mediator scandal—a weight-loss drug for women—victims felt guilty for seeking it, a narrative pushed by Servier labs. We emphasize climbing the chain: hold labs, doctors, and authorities accountable, not the victims."
Would more women in medical leadership improve care?
Arianne Puccini: "Women's perspectives are vital. They're now the majority in med schools and new physician orders. Our research showed women were most responsive to our queries—men rarely consider these issues. Female scientists drive progress in women's health."
Delphine Bauer: "Diverse representation isn't just fair—it's better science. Women raise unique questions, yielding breakthroughs."
* Also authors of Zero Impunity, investigating wartime sexual violence (Ed. Autrement, Oct. 2017).
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