25- RIP United States Women’s Research, 1990-2025

RIP to women’s research, 1990-2025.

Although you were only active for a handful of years, compared to all the research that has been done on men (cough, cough, erectile dysfunction), you will be missed.

I realize that it wasn’t until the early 2020s that period products such as tampons and pads were even tested using human blood, but you taught us so much.

I realize that it was until 2013 that the first woman crash test dummy was made and used in crash tests, but for a brief moment the world realized that women are not just small men.

Some other things you’ve given the people with the female parts were life changing and life saving. I am writing about the BRCA and BRCA1 gene research that showed that some breast cancers are linked to uterine and ovarian cancers. This was in 1998. This led to identifying possible antibody treatments for those cancers.

I put 1990 as your birthday because that is when it became law that women and minorities are to be included in all clinical research. Before that, the NIH guidelines for inclusion of women were not included in research, although the policy had been changed in 1989. The inclusion of women and minorities in research allows the analysis of if the variables being studied affect women and minorities in a different way than other (male) participants. Programs were initiated to recruit and retain women for clinical trials.

I further realize that in 2001 the Institute of Medicine published “Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter”. In this paper, the researchers examined biology from the cellular level up and concluded that the different hormones of the different genders DID impact medication response. We, as women, knew that of course there was a difference but the pharmacology companies didn’t even bother to research that until the late 1990s.

Say it with me, women are not just small men.

I realize that women are mysterious and “icky” to those in power. And worth only the output of our uterus. Why should they bother to test medications and tests and everything else with the lens that female and male are not the same? You taught them differently.

I put 2025 as your ending date because, well, we all know what is happening on the U.S. Federal level. With their pushback of all things gender and race that are not white and male.

Why? Hell if I know. Female are icky.

But research into gender disparities and racial disparities have been under attack since January 20, 2025. We all know what happened that day.

Since January, according to an article in the Atlantic, hundreds of research studies into health disparities and transgender health had their granted grant money yanked away from them. The agency officials who supported these research studies have suddenly lost their jobs.

With the new NIH Director the phrase of the day, the phrase that will guide research is “scientifically justified”.

What the hell does that mean?

Again, hell if I know. But I think it means whatever the hell will allow them to change focus on research. No longer will females and racial issue apply to their new male centered, white centered research focus.

Because after all, men are the most important gender/sex there is. Except if it was assigned female at birth. And white men are the most extra special of all.

With a cherry on top! And topless women to bathe them.

eye roll

RIP to the U.S. research focus on women’s body and racial disparities.

We hardly knew you.

May the future be bright. May the other half of this country wake up from the spell it is under and realize that this is stupid.

May other countries fly your flag proudly.

If you need me, I’m going to be listening to the No Cure For Cancer comedy album by Dr. Denis Leary.

And considering if this new hellscape of research has room for me. I know, probably not because I am a female and I have ideas.

Tuesday Top of Mind 4/29/25- The U.S. is trying to control what kind of health research is published

I know, I know, there is too much bullshit out there to focus on one thing.

I get it.

The purpose of Tuesday Top of Mind is to write about what fresh horribleness is happening in the healthcare realm.

Today, I want to write about the fact that the U.S. government is trying to control what kind of health research is published.

It is done to control what information is out there and, by extension, the U.S. population.

You see, they want to keep us dumb and to not have any avenue to question what is published.

I know that I am fairly new to nursing research but I am not new to nursing.

It is shit like this that allows them to put their knee to the neck of publishers so that the publishers will cave.

It is the bully in the room who takes control of your arm, usually bruising it, and hits you with your own hand, all the while asking “Why are you hitting yourself?” Dude, you are puppeting me and making me hit myself.

It is the bully in the room that has no intellectual curiosity and hates those of us who do.

It is the bully in the room that wants to bend all of science and academia to their will to declare the sky is green with screaming red polka dots and they’re just trying to protect you, boo.

All that they are asking about, if there is room for competing viewpoints, or does the articles get reviewed by lay people, and are the researchers transparent about who is funding them, makes me roll my eyes so hard I can see into last week. The kicker is what if the researcher got it wrong, what then?

They are definitely giving off “i’ve never read a journal article except for once and in that journal article there were no pictures so I didn’t understand it and it made my head hurt” vibes.

Yes, there are seldom pictures.

Yes, the researchers are upfront about each funding source. It is mandatory.

If the researcher came to the wrong conclusion they print a retraction. Like the retraction that the Lancet made for Andrew Wakefield about his flawed, doubly flawed, study of 12 cherry picked children that he said proved a vaccine link to autism. Bitch it did not.

Too late, that damage had already been done. We in healthcare deal with it every day.

Yes, competing viewpoints based in reality are welcome.

Oh, it’s the based in reality that you have a problem with?

I feel sorry for you.

School Me Saturday 4/26/25- Funding changes, what do we do now?

Yes, I know I have written about this before. I don’t care. It is too important. Every day research that has been in the works for I can’t even tell you, research that has already been paid for, is shriveling in the petri dishes.

Research is expensive. Proper, well structured research is expensive. You have to pay for the researcher, you have to pay for the research assistant, you have to pay any adjunct helpers who are conducting the research, you have to pay for the computer you use to write up the reports, you have to pay for the electricity that run a lot of this, you have to pay for the IRB, you have to pay for the data analysis, you have to pay for the lab time, sometimes you even have to pay to get it published (those are the predatory publishers, don’t give in to them), and if you are offering an incentive to garner participation, you have to pay each participant the incentive.

It gets expensive. Capital red letter expensive.

Oh, not only do you sometime have to pay to publish, you have to pay to present at conferences. With all of those attendant costs as well. At AORN there were several international hospitals and countries and research presented. Each of them had to pay for the conference fee, the flight, the hotel, and the food while they were in Boston. Or Orlando, or Chicago, wherever the conference is held.

Many of these are covered in grant indirect costs. These indirect costs are not well understood and is more than a line item in the grant. Not being understood, like at all, means that people overact when they see the line item.

The hammer has fallen. Nascent grants are not being approved. Existing grants are being yanked, even as the research is underway. That is what I meant when I wrote that research is shriveling in the petri dishes.

Why?

This is a very good question. Because the researchers are daring to research something that isn’t white or male. It is being stripped because of the specter of DEI.

Another not well understood concept that is being used as a bludgeoning tool.

DEI doesn’t mean what they think it means. Inigo Montoya snuck in the chat.

This, of course, has started panic at the research universities. Especially the ones who don’t have billions of dollars in endowments. But even if you have that kind of money doesn’t mean it is just sitting around in coffers, or under a dragon like Smaug.

It has been a long time since the students (hello, that’s me and my cohort), had any guidance in the matter. Probably because those doing the reaping are being mum on the matter.

No DEI is all they know how to chant. Again, it doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Yesterday we had a rare in person day on campus where the second and third years who were interested, were given a ground level “this has happened and this is how we envision going forward” talk.

We had a group discussion about how to find and secure funding. Ideas about other funding sources were floated. It was a good conversation. Remember, all of us are nascent nurse researchers.

I know I left feeling a little more hopeful about this crappy situation we find ourselves in. I hope others did too.

I offered my notes to the rest of the cohort that were not there and I hope to have the notes to them tomorrow. I just want to reflect on it some more.

I wore my “Baking is Science” tee shirt with a baking cat on it. On my husband’s recommendation that I leave the political shirts at home. I think a stronger worded tee would have been better. There is always the August in person day.

School Me Saturday 1/6/23-the semester is coming

Break time is over and the semester is starting soon.

There are two ways of looking at the imminent start of the semester.

On one hand, there is excitement. Yay! The semester is beginning. This is the semester where I turn it around and get all my papers/studying done early so I won’t feel so stressed when the due date looms.

On the other hand, there is dread. Another semester? Didn’t we start break like a minute ago?

Or a combination of the two.

Me, I’m a combination of the two. Each semester is bringing me closer to the end of the PhD program! And each semester is bringing me closer to the dissertation!

Both things can be true at the same time.

Ultimately I think that the beginning of the semester is a chance to wipe away the previous one and begin anew. After all, we are learning how to create and build the project, do the project, and write up the project.

Of course, we won’t do it perfectly the first time.

This is where the mantras come in handy.

Right foot, left foot, the only way out is through.

As long as you do no harm, take no shit in the process.