Challenging The NIH New Strategic Plan for Women's Health Research to Develop Resources and Policies to Shift the Paradigm of Science Education which Continues to be Entrenched in a Male Model of Science

Background: The NIH strategic plan for Women's Health Research established six strategic goals.There are critical limitations in these strategies. Objectives: challenges to this plan to generate a new direction in disease-specific research in women's health will be discussed since it reifies research in an entrenched male model of science. The paradigm of medical and science education has not put women's bodies at the center of science despite inclusions in the content of the curicula. Unless this paradigm of teaching women's bodies in science and medical schools change, discoveries will be elusive. Methods:The current research problems addressing HIV prevention for women's empowerment and health provide evidence of the paucity of basic information in women's health discoveries.The science of the vagina e.g was so inadequate in the vaginal Microbicide studies that the studies themselves had to establish basic data on the ecosystem of the vagina.This was critical in delaying a result in this important method for women. Results:The NIH policy to employ innovative strategies and build a well trained and diverse women's health research workforce will be analyzed both for its effectiveness and applicability.This policy is at the heart of generating new research in women's health and therefore necissitates new policies in looking at the way scientists are educated.This will radically change the policies which would increase the sex difference research in basic science studies. Conclusion: New policies regarding gender and science/medical education at the university level will be offered as an important inclusion in facilitating innovation in women's disease specific research