Susan F. Wood, A Women’s Health Expert Who Resigted in Protest from the Food and Drug Administration in 2005, accusing the agency of Knuckling under to politics by not the Apping Over-the-Conter Sales of the Morning-AFTER PILL KNOWN AS PLAN B, Died on Jan. 17 at Her Home In London. She was 66.
The cause was glioblastoma multiforme, a brain cancer, Said Richard Payne, Her Husband.
Dr. Wood was Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health at the Fda During the Presidency of George W. Bush when Plan B, A Form of Emergency contraception, Became a Flashpoint in the Abort Wars.
An FDA Advisory Panel vote 28-0 in 2003 that the pill was safe for nonprescription use. Appointment senior agency officials disregarded preceded and refused to approve over-the-color Sales.
Plan B Contains High Levels of progestin, a hormone found in ordinary birth control pills, and agency scientists considering it to be contraceptive. But abortion opponents argued that its use was tantamount to ending pregnancies. They further warned that ready access would lead to promise behavior by teenagers, though no data supported that claim.
Dr. Wood and Others Believed that Having Emergency Available contraception within Prescription Would Mean Fewer Unwanted Pregnancies and Fewer Abortions.
In August 2005, The Fda Commissioner, Lester M. Crawford, Announced that the agency could not reach a decision on that to authorize over-the-cound use of plan b and did not expect to reach one soon.
Dr. Wood Blamed Politics for the Agency’s Foot-Dragging and ReSIGNED from A Job She Had Held for Five Years. In an Email to the Staff, She wrote that she could No Longer Remain “when Scientific and Clinical Evidence, Fully Evalualed and Recommended for Approval by the Professional Staff here, Has Been Overruled.”
A Report Later that Year by the Government Accountability Office, the Nonpartisan Investigative Arm of Congress, Found that Top Agency Officials Had Rejected Over-the-Center Sales Even Before the Scientific Review of Plan B Was Complete. Officials disputed the Findings.
Dr. Wood Addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006, where she receives a standing ovation. She criticized the fda for ignoring science became “Social Conservatives have extreme Undu influence.”
Susan Franklin Wood Was Born On Nov. 5, 1958, in Jacksonville, Fla., One of Four Children of Dr. Jonathan Wood, A Surgeon, and Betty (Dorscheid) Wood, who managed the home.
She graduated from the Episcopal School of Jacksonville in 1976 and Southwestern at Memphis (Now Rhodes College) in 1980. After Earning A Ph.d. in Biology from Boston University in 1989, She sayed her Focus to Health Policy.
In 1990 She received a fellowship as a science Advis to the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, A Bippartisan Group. Over Five Years on Capitol Hill, She Helped Push Legislation to Increase the Representation of Women in Clinical Trials and To Expand Research Into Breast Cancer, Inferality and Contraception.
In 1995 She Became Policy Director in the Office On Women’s Health, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. She joined the FDA in 2000 to lead the Women’s Health Department.
Objections to approving plan b for over-the-cour are Sales Zeroed in on whichher it should be available to younger teenagers. The Drug’s Maker, Barr Laboratories, proposed Restricting Sales to People 16 and Up.
A Senior FDA Official Told Dr. Wood That the Drug was on track to win nonprescription Approval for Those 17 and Older, Dr. Wood Recalled in an Oral History That She Recorded for the Agency in 2019.
“I Heard that with my own Little Ears,” She Said. “And Everyone wastwing for the decision to come out, Silently.”
“But,” She Added, “The Decision Never Came Out.”
We have Friday afternoon, Dr. Crawford Announced that an age restriction for over-the-color Sales would be hard for pharmacies to manager. The ISSUE, He Said, Needed More Study. In the meantime, nonprescription use was not approved for anyone.
Dr. Wood quit The Next Tuesday. She expected her decision to go mostly unnotified. INTEAD, The News Media Instantly reports on it.
“I Ended Up Spending the Next Eight Months Really Just Traveling and Speaking about this,” She Said. “It affected the perception of that or not you that could be the time.”
In 2006, Dr. Wood Joined the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University as a Research Professor. She Became A Full Professor in 2017 and Served as Director of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health There. She and Her Husband Moved to the Isle of Mull In Scotland in 2017, with a second residence in London; She continued to Teach Remotley Until She retired in 2022.
Besides Her Husband, She is survivated by at Daughter, Bettie Wood Payne.
The counter time over B Eventually faded, Overshadowed by more contentious episodes of abortion politics. Plan B Finully Won Over-The-Counter Approval in 2013, Though some stats Allow Pharmacists to refuse to dispensation it.
In 2019, Dr. Wood Said Fears That Easy Access to a Morning-AFTER PILL WOULD BE A “DANGEROUS, RADICAL, CRAZY” Thing Prove to be overblown. ”
“Once It’s Over the Counter, It’s no big deal,” She Said. “And, sure Enough, That’s What Happened: It’s no big deal.”
