Gender Discrimination And Pain

By Author: Thomas Strickland
Total Articles: 102
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When it comes to politics, we live in a complicated world. It's interesting to watch the latest numbers from the census. It's going to have an increasingly important effect on race relations as the white Caucasian majority turn into the minority over the next twenty or so years. The trends are unmistakable and, it seems, inevitable since the birth rate among the White majority has been so consistently declining. When it comes to gender, the natural ratio has always favored boys to girls. This evened out quite quickly because the boys tended to get sick and die young. With advances in medical science, the majority of boys now survive so, even though women live longer, there are going to be more males than females. Why does this matter?

We now get into one of those areas of medical research where we talk about the politically incorrect stuff. The less controversial looks for clusters of disease by geography. So if some areas are more prone to certain types of problem, doctors are trained and resources can be available. This would mean anti-venom will be stored in hospitals where there's a local population of poisonous snakes. ...
... But it can also mean that resources have to be located where there are particular groups of people who are more likely to be affected by different diseases. In theory, everyone is equal except this is not always completely true. There are, for example, slight differences in the way drugs affect different racial groups. This is not significant in the drugs that the FDA approves, but it is a routine part of clinical trials.

When it comes to the differences between men and women, the basic biology is similar but not the same with some drugs being potentially or actually poisonous to women and not men, e.g. some drugs can cause miscarriages or birth defects. There's also clear evidence that men and women react to pain differently. This is probably cultural. Men are the macho types. For them, it's less acceptable to admit to pain or, indeed, any weakness. But women are not expected to have the same toughness. The statistics show women are significantly more likely to visit a doctor and complain of pain. The national count of prescriptions show an incredible imbalance in the number of painkillers given to women. Hospitals and health insurance records also show far more women than men attending for treatment. So, when it comes to training the next group of doctors and deciding where to build the next hospitals, the focus is going to be on providing treatment for women and the diseases more likely to affect them.

Fortunately, when it comes to painkillers like Ultram, the biology works in the same way. There's no difference in brain chemistry and the drug stops the pain messages from reaching their destination regardless of sex (or gender). For once, this is uncontroversial and there's absolutely no hint of discrimination. Treatment is identical and the relief from pain potentially equal. Although there remains one factor. Since women are more likely to report continuing pain, they may be encouraged to take a higher dosage of Ultram when the pain is chronic.