Women and HIV Think Tank

A literature review on sex differences and women's issues in HIV Women's bodies differ in essential ways from men's. That difference is locked into the genes from the moment of conception. Growth and development unfold the sexual dimorphism so that it exists on every level of biological organization, from the cell to the whole organism. The result is a male-female variation in relationship with the outside world that goes far beyond reproduction to mental outlook, food metabolism and immune responses. Sexual reproduction is important because it weeds out noxious mutations; sexual dimorphism extends the breadth of human abilities, making the species more responsive to a wide range of environments, including the technological culture we have so recently adopted. It is part of the essential biologic pattern, then, that there is a divergence in the male and female response to invasion by HIV. The female mode of response, long dismissed as a trivial biological complication, is better viewed as a central variation on a theme. Studying the way women's bodies differ from men's when confronting HIV is not to be avoided as a superfluous expense. It is vital to learning how HIV causes disease and how to more appropriately treat it. From bench science to postmarketing trials, lack of research on AIDS in women hobbles our efforts to halt the HIV epidemic. Whereas activists once saw such studies as way to achieve early access to experimental treatments when those were our only hope, now we can see this research as a matter of profound scientific equity. This paper reviews the latest findings on female sex as a major determinant in the human relationship with HIV. A revolution in molecular biology is bringing ever greater understanding as to how sexual biology affects the body. It is amazing how little of that seeped into the field of HIV and AIDS.