I have an experiment for you.

There probably are ways around it AB, in fact there must be for drugs aimed specifically for women.
Having said that, trusting people to state their status wouldn't be enough I don't think.
I found this interesting article, because although I disuputed the claim that medicines aren't tested on women, it's obvious they are rarely tested on pregnant women:
mosaicscience.com/story/pregnancy-testing-drugs
"our efforts to protect women and their fetuses have actually put them both in jeopardy.".
Kind of what I said above; the reasons for not testing are an effort to protect, not exclude.

Fairly simple to ask women to take a pregnancy test before starting any trials then, or trust them to state if there was any remote possibility that they could be pregnant.

Issues around fertility would presumably apply to men too?

Not in the same way, since a man doesn't gestate so his health can't affect a foetus. I suppose it could affect his sperm, but usually unhealthy sperm doesn't get to fertilise as far as I know (I'm getting out of my knowledge comfort zone here :) ). The legislation and COSHH (control of substances hazardous to health) guidelines do not make any special provisions for men, so I assume not.
Don't forget, women can be pregnant without realising it, if only for a matter of weeks, and it would be disastrous (and a huge scandal) if they were exposed to an agent which caused genetic defects in the period.

That would exclude new and expectant mothers from these trials. What about women not in that position?

Issues around fertility would presumably apply to men too?

Can you explain a bit more about this? What are the extra harms that might happen to women that won't happen to men?

Primarily relating to fertility or effects on the unborn fetus (teratogenic or mutagenic effects) or the effects on a newborn from breastfeeding.
In fact, it doesn't just apply to clinical trials, but general H&S. The H&S at work act includes provision for new and expectant mothers for exactly this reason.

Interesting perspective here from a medical professional

"I also think it's an unfortunate side effect of protecting women that limits data on them, rather than some conspiracy to exclude them. i.e. it's about protecting women from harm, rather than not caring about our health."

Can you explain a bit more about this? What are the extra harms that might happen to women that won't happen to men?

I wonder then what the reasons are behind the lack of drug trials on PoC which has caused some serious problems up til now. Is that limited due to some ethical considerations? Maybe going back to Tuskegee and similar?

Femicide has been a feature of almost every culture in every time. While female foetuses weren't specifically aborted 60 yrs ago in Europe, girls were often left unfed and left to die from preventable diseases even in the 1960s. They were also less likely to be educated than their brothers.

Yes, there are some ethical issues with trials on drugs of women of child bearing age, of course.
Drug testing is dangerous after all, and it would be disastrous to trial a drug which had similar effects to thalidomide for example, or resulted in sterility.
I see this limiting of women as necessary for the ethics of these trials. I also think it's an unfortunate side effect of protecting women that limits data on them, rather than some conspiracy to exclude them. i.e. it's about protecting women from harm, rather than not caring about our health.
Vestal implied that people only cared about thalidomide effects because it affected male babies. While I agree of course that males are prioritised in our society, I think that's going too far. Of course people care about babies dying and being maimed - irrelevant of gender. Yes, I'm aware of female abortions and infanticide in various regions around the world, but this is Europe 60 years ago or so when these things didn't happen.

deydo, you're right, it isn't just men that are used as test subjects for clinical trials. My understanding is though that it has only been fairly recently that women of child bearing age have been allowed to participate. I think there is also still a bias in the numbers of women recruited for these trials. There certainly seem to be a lot of studies and articles about this issue.

Re the point about male babies being affected, Vestal didn't say that it was just male babies, she said "male babies, too". So male babies as well as female.

trofire.com/2016/12/13/decades-crash-tests-used-male-dummies-result-women-injured-killed-car-accidents/

My partner told me about the above fairly recently. Amazing how many places sexism has found to seep into.

All medical research is based on men?
Where do these nonsense ideas come from?
Male and female patients are considered in clinical trials, in case there are differences in the populations.
Just look up any clinical trial results online, they'll include statistical analysis of male/female split, plus any risk factors such as smoker, diabetic, age, etc.
Clinical researchers aren't idiots you know.
Thalidomide (Contergan) wasn't not tested on women, it was perfectly fine for women for its original indication.
The scandal was the indication was extended to treat nausea in morning sickness without a trial.
And it wasn't male babies affected at all, it was all babies, male and female.

Oh my god OP I never really comment on the feminism board but this has literally blown my mind. Isn't it funny relatively little things like this just pass you by until someone points it out and then you wonder how it took you so long to notice it!
Thank you

It really annoys me that women are the majority of the population, but treated as the other, not the default. It's totally illogical & inaccurate - things that women are accused of being, but men have done this.

Human childbirth sure would be even more of a nightmare if women had male hips ...

I wonder how many women have died over the years because all medical research was based on men.

It is a form of femicide that's even more invisible than forcing women to give birth. They can always shrug and say "Oh, no, how unfortunate she didn't know she was having a heart attack!"

And with medication that's only ever been tested on men ... women may suffer side effects or die and it is declared an accident, the only time it was visible was with the contergan scandal when it affected babies ... male babies, too, which might have made the difference.

Makes me really angry that shit.

1 really bizarre article online talked about why human childbirth is such a nightmare in evolutionary terms. Which was all scientifically until it used pics of a male body while describing womens' hips!!!

I'm not sure that a view of a woman would be "obscene" but we're all aware of pornography, and people who put medical teaching materials together might deliberately avoid pictures of women, just so nobody accuses them of using too many pictures of women.

Now that I'm thinking about, I wonder if the underlying issue is that a male body is just a body, but we can never take a female body for granted, there are always issues connected with how it's presented. Yet another item on the list of feminist concerns.

I noticed it shortly after starting to take Anatomy classes. Female bodies are usually shown only when there are anatomical differences (goes from systems to bones). My teacher is female, so her slides are better balanced, but the books are merciless.

I had a feeling that's where you'd be going with that one, OP. And you're right - it is something to be worried about, because it's not just google images, it's an attitude which is pervasive and means drugs, surgical procedures, diagnostic techniques are all predicated on the male body as default, with the result that women often don't get adequate treatment, and in some cases have their lives put at risk (it's only in the last ten years, for instance, that there's been an education programme around the fact that heart attack symptoms present completely differently in women).

I googled human bodies and wiki came up first with both male and female

Why are they all men shaped ? There's no real need is there ? A human body can be demonstrated without making it all muscly !