EXAMPLE 7 Sex bias in treating heart disease?

Doctors are less likely to give aggressive treatment to women with symptoms of heart disease than to men with similar symptoms. Is this because doctors are sexist? Not necessarily. Women tend to develop heart problems much later than men so that female heart patients are older and often have other health problems. That might explain why doctors proceed more cautiously in treating them.

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This is a case for a comparative study with statistical adjustments for the effects of confounding variables. There have been several such studies, and they produce conflicting results. Some show, in the words of one doctor, “When men and women are otherwise the same and the only difference is gender, you find that treatments are very similar.” Other studies find that women are undertreated even after adjusting for differences between the female and male subjects.