treatment ineffective for "female samples"

There's been lots of interesting debate lately on the stigma around mental illness, and the horrible associations the general public have with mental illness and violence...... I have strong views, but they have already been elegantly put by others.
However, reading around the debate I came across one short sentence in an article which really shocked me. In a supposedly clinical level discussion of medication, just one sentence referred oh so briefly to the fact that this whole theory didn't work for "female samples". OK, this is a wikipedia entry, not exactly the guiding light of accurate scientific research, but it reminded me of a terrifying fact. Medical processes and drugs are often not tested on women, (and the elderly, and the mentally ill........), who constitute over half the population... nor  are they tested on children, and many mental health drugs are now given with horrifying frequency to children........
I'm only a humble bird, but how the hell does this constitute good scientific practice?