Sidney M. Wolfe was a consumer health watchdog and physician who challenged both drug companies and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and he campaigned to have unsafe drugs taken off the market.
- Died: January 1, 2024 (Who else died on January 1?)
- Details of death: Died in Washington, D.C., of brain cancer at the age of 86.
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Sidney M. Wolfe’s legacy
A Cleveland-born doctor and son of a workplace safety inspector, Wolfe saw how important concerns about public safety were from a young age. He attended Cornell University and earned a degree in chemical engineering, but he decided that a career in the field wasn’t in his future after receiving chemical burns at a summer job. He went on to Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University), where he earned a medical degree in 1965.
Wolfe went into research and joined the National Institutes of Health in 1966. After meeting consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Wolfe joined forces with Nader to get contaminated intravenous fluids recalled from the market. For decades, Wolfe made an impact on public safety by advocating against pharmaceuticals he believed were dangerous, often sparring with major drug companies and the FDA in the process. For example, he led a long campaign to remove the opioid propoxyphene – the primary component in the drugs Darvon and Darvocet – from the market for causing heart issues. He waged similar efforts against Oraflex, Zomax, Vioxx, and Baycol, among other prescription drugs.
From 2008 to 2012, Wolfe served on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee. He was also an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University. In 1990, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Books he wrote or contributed to include “Questionable Doctors; Disciplined by States or the Federal Government” and “Worst Pills, Best Pills: A Consumer’s Guide to Avoiding Drug-Induced Death or Illness.”
Notable quote
“Once the industry realizes that painkillers or diabetes drugs or high blood pressure drugs are a lucrative market – which they’ve known for a long time – they try and slice out another piece of it.”—from a 2003 interview with PBS Frontline
Tributes to Sidney M. Wolfe
Full obituary: The Washington Post
