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Sidney Wolfe, fierce critic of Big Pharma and FDA, dead at 86
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Post
Posted: January 8th, 2024
https://nypost.com/2024/01/02/business/sidney-wolfe-fierce-c...
Sidney M. Wolfe, an American physician turned activist who relentlessly lobbied against drug companies and the US Food and Drug Administration, died on Monday in his Washington home. He was 86. Wolfe ... co-founded the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, which “promotes research-based, system-wide changes in health-care policy and drug safety,” according to the group’s website. He also served as the director and senior adviser of the non-profit, where he crusaded against FDA rulings on more than two dozen dangerous or ineffective drugs until they were yanked off the market. In an op-ed published in HuffPost in 2011, Wolfe ridiculed the FDA for being “cautious on food safety — reckless on prescription drug safety.” The banned medicines include the diabetes drug phenformin, which was linked to hundreds of deaths and sold under the trade names DBI and Meltrol in the US for 20 years. Wolfe was also responsible for the banning of the anti-inflammatory Vioxx ... which he warned caused serious heart damage years before it was taken off the market — as well as the anti-diarrheal alosetron. His group also successfully petitioned federal regulators to include a warning on aspirin bottles about Reye’s syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal condition that causes swelling in the liver and brain. In addition, Wolfe was a fierce foe of silicone gel-filled breast implants for breast augmentation and reconstruction surgeries, claiming in the 1980s that they cause cancer.
Note: Read the full remembrance of Dr. Sidney Wolfe’s legacy. His leadership helped remove 28 dangerous medications off the market, and paved the way for “vital and path-breaking research and advocacy on doctor discipline, mental health, tobacco, pharmaceutical marketing, drug company payments to doctors, medical devices, health insurance and the imperative of Medicare for All, unnecessary Cesarean sections, unregulated supplements, medical resident work hours, and more.” For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.
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