Sidney M. Wolf, an American physician-turned-activist who relentlessly lobbied pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, died Monday at his home in Washington. He was 86 years old.
Susannah Goldberg, Mr. Wolf's wife of nearly 50 years, said he died of a brain tumor. The Washington Post.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Wolf earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and co-founded the Public Citizen Health Research Group. ” according to the group's website.
He also served as a board member and senior advisor to the nonprofit organization, where he campaigned against FDA rulings on more than 20 dangerous or ineffective drugs until they were removed from the market.
in Editorial published on Huffington Post In 2011, Wolf derided the FDA as “cautious when it comes to food safety and reckless when it comes to prescription drug safety.”
The banned drugs also include the diabetes drug phenformin, which has been linked to hundreds of deaths and has been sold in the United States under the brand names DBI and Meltrol for 20 years.
Wolf was also responsible for banning the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx, officially known as rofecoxib, which he warned years before it was removed from the market that it caused serious heart problems. Ta. So was the antidiarrheal drug alosetron, also known as Rotronex. The Washington Post reported.
His group also successfully petitioned federal regulators to put warnings about Reye syndrome on aspirin bottles. Reye syndrome is a rare but potentially fatal condition that causes swelling of the liver and brain.
Additionally, in the 1980s, Wolf was a vocal opponent of silicone gel breast implants used in breast augmentation and reconstructive surgery, claiming they caused cancer.
But the FDA moved forward with approval of the implant in November 2006, a move Wolf denounced. blog post Public Citizen's website calls it “the most defective medical device ever approved by the FDA.”
“This approval makes a mockery of the legal standard of 'reasonable assurance of safety,'” he added.
Today, silicone breast implants are still “approved for breast augmentation in women 22 years and older and for breast reconstruction in women of all ages,” according to the FDA's website. “They are also used for revision surgeries to correct or improve the results of the original surgery.”
Despite the setbacks, “Sid has the ability to get things on the FDA's agenda,” FDA official Robert Young told the Wall Street Journal in 1985. [Health Research Group] Once you file a petition, it will be considered very carefully. ”
Government regulators are also known to have leaked anonymous information to Mr. Wolf, according to the Washington Post.
But Wolf also mined published medical journals, scientific papers, and other research findings for evidence, then bypassed bureaucracy and lobbied directly to FDA leaders to enact reforms, and then used his own research results to enact reforms. The Washington Post reported that he chased reporters around to cover the issue.
Michael Jacobson said of Wolf in 2005, when he was executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, that Wolf “spends his life systematically looking for problems and has made an astonishing number of discoveries.” '' he told the New York Times.
He is “almost a unique figure in the drug world,” Jacobson added.
Michael Gladwell, a Washington Post business and science reporter in the 1980s who received many of Mr. Wolf's persistent phone calls, called Mr. Wolf “Washington's Nagging.”
