Sidney Wolfe, MD – His Legacy Will Live On As America’s Hero
Legacy of a Medical Crusader: Sidney Wolfe, MD
He became the model for how clinical people who have an understanding of what happens could put their experience and expertise to use outside the clinic.
Wolfe came to believe the FDA, founded to safeguard the public, got caught up in the “medical-industrial complex” and sometimes lost its way to the point where “the citizen didn’t have a chance on their own,” Saini said. “The system was failing.” To correct it, “he became the model for how clinical people who have an understanding of what happens could put their experience and expertise to use outside the clinic.”
Wolfe’s list of notable successes — some of which took decades before the government acted — include the eventual ban of dozens of drugs and additives. Among them are the food coloring Red Dye No. 2, powdered latex gloves, and the arthritis pill Vioxx. He campaigned for years to get a warning on aspirin for children after it was associated with Reye syndrome, a rare but fatal complication. Thanks to his advocacy, the government monitors the amount of the carcinogenic mold aflatoxin in peanut products.
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He made a point of making his findings public. “Things happened in the medical environment that were a result of Sid’s actions that clearly never would have happened,” Lurie said. “Doctors would experience them and never know why. It was this doctor [Wolfe] in Washington.”
“Many — not all — of his concerns were legitimate and resulted in FDA action,” conceded Wayne Pines, an associate FDA commissioner from 1978 to 1982.
Wolfe was as skeptical of sources as he was of the FDA. “If you called him up as a whistleblower, you could expect a barrage of questions,” Lurie said. FDA officials had grudging respect for him when he got his teeth into an issue, but he “had the ability to say no.”
A Legacy of Skepticism
“What he taught doctors was that you’ve got to be critical,” Saini said. “You’ve got to be skeptical when drugs and devices are released into the marketplace.”
Marianne Perez, whose daughter died of an overdose of OxyContin, saw Wolfe’s tender side. When she testified before a US Senate committee in 2006 on the perils of the painkiller, Wolfe was seated beside her. “He reached over and patted the top of my hand,” she recalled. “I was just impressed with his conscience. He knew what these pharmaceutical companies were getting away with. He was a hero to me.”
John Dillon is a journalist in Boston, Massachusetts.