Sidney M. Wolfe

Sidney M. Wolfe, MD, is a physician and currently the director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, a consumer and health advocacy lobbying group.^[1]

He has publicly crusaded against many pharmaceuticals, which Dr. Wolfe believes are a danger to public health. For more than 30 years, he campaigned to have Propoxyphene removed from the American market, because it can cause heart arrhythmia. In January 2009, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended that it be withdrawn from the market.^[2] The recommendation to ban propoxyphene was ultimately not upheld and instead manufacturers were required to place additional warning labels on packaging. Drugs Dr. Wolfe campaigned against include Phenacetin, Oraflex, Zomax, Vioxx,^[3] Baycol^[4] and many others.

He has been interviewed on television by Phil Donahue, Barbara Walters, Bill Moyers,^[5] and Oprah Winfrey.

In 2009, Dr. Wolfe was appointed to the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Committee.^[6][7] He writes for Huffington Post.^[8]

On November 19, 2010, the FDA recommended against continued prescribing and use of propoxyphene.^[9] Brand-name drugs include both Darvon and Darvocet. Dr Wolfe was instrumental in having this drug banned.

Awards

• 1990 MacArthur Fellows Program

Works

• Worst Pills, Best Pills. January 2005, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 9780743492560
• Pills That Don't Work, 1981
• Torrey, E. Fuller; Stieber, Joan; Ezekiel, Jonathan; Wolfe, Sidney M; Sharfstein, Joshua; Noble, John H; Flynn, Laurie M (1992), Criminalizing the Seriously Mentally Ill: The Abuse of Jails as Mental Hospitals, A joint report of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and Public Citizen's Health Research Group, ISBN 0-7881-4279-8, http://books.google.com/books?id=kR_t_xV5RJIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22criminalizing+the+seriously+mentally+ill%22&source=bl&ots=km5BPwCbFQ&sig=Jx_thDENvbSrM7jbDYF2iNXAklw&hl=en&ei=jejcTKmBONT4caDAuYAM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false, retrieved 12 November 2010 
• "Unethical Trials of Interventions to Reduce Perinatal Transmission of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Developing Countries", Bioethics: an anthology, Editors Helga Kuhse, Peter Singer, Wiley-Blackwell, 2006, ISBN 9781405129480

References

1. ^ http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=1260
2. ^ "FDA Advisers: Ban Painkiller Darvon". CBS news. 2009-01-30. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/30/health/main4764797.shtml?tag=main_home_storiesBySection. 
3. ^ "Drug Industry's Longtime Critic Says 'I Told You So'", The New York Times, GARDINER HARRIS, February 15, 2005
4. ^ "Statement of Sidney M. Wolfe, MD, before the FDA Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee Hearing on Rosuvastatin" (HRG Publication #1669)]
5. ^ BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Single Payer Health Insurance | PBS YouTube
6. ^ http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/Drugs/DrugSafetyandRiskManagementAdvisoryCommittee/ucm094892.htm
7. ^ Goldstein, Jacob (January 9, 2009). "Sidney Wolfe: Outsider Becomes FDA Insider". The Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/01/09/sidney-wolfe-outsider-becomes-fda-insider/tab/article/. 
8. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sidney-m-wolfe/fda-cautious-on-food-safe_b_499344.html
9. ^ http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm234338.htm

External links

• Public Citizen website
• Worst Pills Best Pills
• "Health Talk: Doctors Online", Washington Post, Abigail Trafford, July 6, 1999

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