Susan Wood Quits FDA over Morning-After Pill Decision

Susan Wood began this week as director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Women's Health. She quit on Wednesday because she says the FDA is playing politics with the “morning-after” pill contraceptive. She believes that her principles no longer permit her to be a part of the organization, as it no longer has the integrity she believes it should possess. She’s an American heroine and patriot of the first order.

The morning-after pill is a contraceptive a woman takes the day after intercourse to prevent pregnancy. Since it acts after a possible (but not provable) fertilization of the ova, it offends certain religious groups’ beliefs about the sanctity of human life. Be that as it may, it has been sold by prescription in the United States since July 28, 1999 when the FDA approved it. An FDA advisory committee told the bureaucrats that they should allow it to be sold without a prescription two years ago. And earlier this year, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) got a promise from Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt that the FDA would allow the over-the-counter sales to start September 1, 2005.

Yesterday came and went, however, without the pill getting over-the-counter approval. A few days earlier, the FDA claimed in a letter to the manufacturer, Barr Pharmaceuticals, that there were unresolved bureaucratic issues that needed more time (60 days) and public comment to resolve. One such issue is “Can age be used as a criterion on which we decide whether a drug should be prescription or over-the-counter, as has been proposed in this case?” Nicotine and alcohol are both drugs that are illegal for minors and are sold over-the-counter to adults, so it is hard to see what the problem is. Moreover, the FDA has had two years to settle the issue and seems to have been surprised by the sudden arrival of September 1.

Dr. Wood is a career scientist (her doctorate is in biology) and had been with the FDA for nearly five years. For about 15 years, her career has centered on women’s health issues. In an e-mail to colleagues announcing her resignation, she said the delay “continues to limit women's access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions [and] is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women's health. I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled [sic]. I therefore have submitted my resignation effective today.”

Regardless of the side one takes in the abortion issue, Dr. Wood’s decision to give up a job and a government pension is noble and honorable, and sadly, it is rare. She leaves with her credibility intact, her dignity enhanced. Whereas Colin Powell, for instance, got talked into backing a war he didn’t believe in, and now is best remembered as a footnote in the history of the military. Any honor or integrity he had beyond that was shredded when he chose not to quit and chose to follow a policy of aggressive war in which he didn’t believe.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home