https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangers-of-excluding-women-from-hiv-prevention-drug-tests/

When Dázon Dixon Diallo began working to prevent the spread of HIV among women in 1985, she first had to convince them that they could get the infection. Even some HIV activists didn’t fully appreciate that women needed to be included in prevention efforts. Diallo founded an Atlanta-based organization called SisterLove to promote reproductive justice and to support women with or at risk of getting HIV/AIDS, expanding it to a program in South Africa, where today two-thirds of the people living with HIV are women. In the US, almost one in five new HIV diagnoses are among women.

Yet after 35 years, Diallo is still waiting for gender equity in the research for drugs that could prevent HIV infection. The underrepresentation of women in all kinds of medical research—from heart disease to sexual dysfunction—is a longstanding concern among women’s health activists. With HIV, inequity not only leaves women vulnerable to a life-altering disease, but it also thwarts efforts to stop its spread. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 260,000 women live with HIV in the US, and in 2018, 6,000 women received a new diagnosis of infection.