In 2001, the Institute of Medicine published a report called Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health—Does Sex Matter? “It matters,” the report concluded, “in ways that we did not expect. Undoubtedly, it also matters in ways that we have not begun to imagine.” But little changed. The result is a profound lack of knowledge. As recently as 2014, Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, the associate director for women’s health research at the NIH, told The New York Times, “We literally know less about every aspect of female biology compared to male biology.”
