Susan F. Wood, who resigned from the FDA via Plan B, dies at 66

Susan F. Wood, a health expert for women who resigned from Food and Drug Administration in 2005 and accused the agency under politics by not approving over -the -counter sales of the morning pill known as Plan B, died on 17. January in her house in London. She was 66.

The cause was Multiforme Glioblastoma, brain cancer, said Richard Payne, her husband.

Dr. Wood was a form of emergency prevention during the presidency of George W. Bush, as Plan B, a form of emergency prevention, a flashpoint in the abortion wars.

In 2003, an FDA advisory committee voted 28: 0 that the pill was safe for the use that is not subject to prescription. However, the high -ranking agency officials ignored the precedent and refused to approve over -the -counter sales.

Plan B contains a high degree of progestin, a hormone that can be found in ordinary anti -Bab types, and the agency's scientists regarded it as contraceptives. But opponents of abortion argued that his use for the termination of pregnancies was synonymous. They also warned that the Ready Access would lead to the promiscuitive behavior of teenagers, although no data supported this claim.

Dr. Wood and others believed that an emergency prevention would mean less undesirable pregnancies and less abortions without a prescription.

In August 2005, FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford announced that the agency could not make a decision as to whether the over-the-counter use of Plan B should be approved and did not expect one to reach one soon.

Dr. Wood accused the politics of the agency's football and stepped back from a job that she had held for five years. In an e -mail to the staff, she wrote that she could no longer remain, “if scientific and clinical evidence, which fully evaluated here and recommended to approved professional staff, were overridden.”

A report later this year of the state accountability duty, the impartial investigation in the congress, showed that the officials of the top agency had already rejected over-the-counter sales before the scientific review of Plan B. Officials denied the results.

Dr. Wood spoke to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006, where she received standing ovations. It criticized the FDA for the ignoration of science because “social conservative extreme influence has inappropriate influence”.

Susan Franklin Wood was on November 5, 1958 in Jacksonville, Florida, one of four children by Dr. Jonathan Wood, a surgeon, and Betty (Dorscheid) Wood born who managed the house.

In 1976 she completed the Episcopal School of Jacksonville and in 1980 in Memphis (now Rhodes College). After you have a Ph.D. In biology from Boston University in 1989, she shifted her focus on health policy.

In 1990 she received a scholarship as a scientific consultant for the Caucus for Women's topics, a group across party. Over five years on Capitol Hill, she helped to advance the legislation to increase the representation of women in clinical studies and to expand research into breast cancer, infertility and contraception.

In 1995 she became political director in the office for women's health, part of the Ministry of Health and Human Services. She joined the FDA in 2000 to lead the health department for women.

Objections to the approval of Plan B for over -the -counter sales were pointed out whether he was available to younger teenagers. The manufacturer of the drug, Barr Laboratories, suggested to restrict sales to people aged 16 and over.

A high -ranking FDA officer said Dr. Wood that the medication is on the right track to win the approval for those aged 17 and over, Dr. recalled Wood in an oral history that she recorded for the agency in 2019.

“I heard that with my own little ears,” she said. “And everyone waited for the decision to come out silently.”

“But” she added, “the decision never came out.”

On a Friday afternoon, Dr. Crawford that an age restriction for over -the -counter sales for pharmacies would be difficult. The problem, he said, needed more studies. In the meantime, the use that is not subject to prescription was admitted to anyone.

Dr. Wood announced next Tuesday. She expected her decision to be largely unnoticed. Instead, the news media reported about it immediately.

“I really only traveled and talked about it for the next eight months,” she said. “It influenced perception whether it could trust the government at that time or not.”

In 2006 Dr. Wood as a research professor of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. In 2017 she became a full professor and was the director of the Jacob Institute of Women's Health. In 2017, she and her husband moved to the Isle of Mull in Scotland with a second residence in London. She continued to teach from afar until she retired in 2022.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by a daughter, Bettie Wood Payne.

Contretemps over Plan B finally faded, overshadowed by more controversial episodes of abortion policy. Plan B finally won a general approval in 2013, although some countries enable pharmacists to refuse them.

In 2019, Dr. Wood that fears that the simple access to a pill in the morning is a “dangerous, radical, crazy” thing as exaggerated “.

“As soon as it is over the counter, it's not a big deal,” she said. “And of course it happened: it's not a big deal.”