This weekâs episode, The Dirty Little Secrets in Women’s Healthcare on Holy Hormones Honey! airs  November 14the  LIVE at 9 am Pacific.  Catch this episode and others on demand every day here!
Introduction & Background
A dirty little secret in the world of womenâs healthcare â there are relatively few data guiding medical decision-making. Indeed, across all medical specialties the auspices of evidence-based are crumbling quickly in the face of open access and open science. Recent reports suggest less than 50% of all medical treatments have any data to support their efficacy. Of that evidence, much could be suspect given the rampant payments from pharmaceutical and device companies to physicians and other decision-makers, plus the well-documented publishing bias and even fraud plaguing the scientific publishing industry.
In womenâs health, matters are even worse. Not only are evidenced-based, clinical practice guidelines nearly non-existent in Ob/Gyn (only 30% of practice guidelines based on data) and women still not included in early stage clinical trials in sufficient numbers, but regulatory agencies do not mandate gender analytics for new medications. The result, post market adverse events â think death and disabling injury â are more common in women than men.
Why do women die and suffer from adverse events at a much higher rate than men? Because most medications reach the market without the appropriate testing or analytics to distinguish why women might respond to said medications differently than men. Even in the lab, male rodents are used about 90% of the time.
The lack of data in womenâs healthcare is unacceptable. We know that the larger companies who sell these products have no motivation to gather or make public these types of data â too many billions of dollars are at stake â and so, it is up to us, the women who need safe health products for ourselves and our families, to be the change agents.
Thatâs where Dr. Marrs and her company Lucine Health Sciences come in. Dr. Marrs believes that patients and physicians ought to have credible and unbiased information from which to make healthcare decisions. She created Hormones Matter â Where health and hormones make sense to fill the credibility gap in health media. Hormones Matter is online, community publication offering readers cutting edge research, policy and health news with analysis of issues and topics that affect women and their families. The publication gives voice to patients with difficult to diagnose and treat conditions and provides insight and interaction from health communities around the world.
Since much of the data to make informed healthcare decisions do not exist, Dr. Marrs has made it her companyâs mission to collect those data. To that end, Lucine through Hormones Matter is running five online studies with many more planned:
- ·        The oral contraceptives Survey safety, off-label prescribing and efficacy
- ·        The Hysterectomy Surveyâ causes, outcomes and efficacy
- ·        The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey â safety and side-effects
- ·        The Lupron Side Effects Survey
- ·        The Fluoroquinolone Antibiotic Side Effects Survey
Bio
Chandler Marrs MS, MA, PhD, CEO, is the founder, creator and driving force behind Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter. Dr. Marrs is a mom, a scientist and a fierce womenâs health advocate. Â She has an extensive collection of online writings with a scope and depth of expertise uncommon in todayâs hyper-specialized environment. Dr. Marrs has spent the last 15 years in womenâs health research and brings that knowledge and innate curiosity to bear with Lucine. Dr. Marrs received her BA in philosophy from the University of Redlands; MS in Clinical Psychology from California Lutheran University; and, MA and PhD in Experimental Psychology/ Neuroendocrinology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
