America has lost a towering public health leader and an unparalleled consumer
champion, Public Citizen has lost one of our founders, and I and many others
have lost a great friend. My dear friend Sid Wolfe passed away yesterday. He was
86 years old.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe founded the Health Research Group in 1971 with Ralph Nader,
part of the enterprise that launched as Public Citizen that same year. Sid
invented a new approach of “research-based advocacy” to get dangerous drugs and
devices off the market, win new protections for worker health and safety,
address doctor misconduct, challenge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to
do its job, and hold pharmaceutical companies accountable.

Sid was brilliant (he won a MacArthur “genius grant”) and fearless in his
advocacy. But what was most singular about him professionally was his passion
for advancing health justice. There was a distinctive fierceness and fury to his
work. Everyone who knew or even encountered Sid — allies and adversaries alike —
experienced his intensity.

Here’s why be brought that to his work for more than 50 years: Ralph Nader once
coined the term “pitiless abstraction” to describe the mental gymnastics of
corporate executives and lawyers who know that their decisions — for example, to
allow dangerous cars on the market — would cost the lives of substantial numbers
of people but who took refuge in the fact that they had no idea who those people
were. They were just abstractions.

By contrast, for Sid, the victims of drug company or other corporate wrongdoing
or FDA failures weren’t abstractions. Like those executives, he didn’t know the
victims’ names. But he did know they were real, breathing human beings, as
deserving of care and protection as our family members and those close to us.

So, when the FDA compromised its mission and permitted a dangerous drug on the
market, or when a drug company concealed risks, or when employers exposed
workers to toxics, or when the private health insurance system deprived people
of access to care, Sid was outraged. The anonymous people injured or killed by
those actions or inactions were just as precious as anyone he knew.

Sid’s sense of injustice about drugs, devices, and a health system that imposed
avoidable and needless suffering reflected the underlying science. Sid carried
out cutting-edge research of the highest caliber. Under his leadership and the
standards he established, the positions Health Research Group stakes out and
advocates are rooted in science and evidence. When we recommend against approval
of a drug, for example, it’s because the available data shows that its risks are
too great. Sure, sometimes there are judgment calls. But Sid saw that in the
overwhelming number of cases when the FDA sided with a drug company against our
recommendation, it was ignoring the best science, responding instead to improper
influence and refusing to uphold its core public health and consumer protection
mission. With lives and people’s well-being at stake, outrage was exactly the
right response.

“Outrage,” in fact, was Sid’s catchphrase, his cri de coeur . Every issue of Health Research Group’s Health Letter contains an “Outrage of
the Month,” penned by Sid until he handed over leadership of the group about a
decade ago. For Sid, outrage was a moral imperative; the only humane response to
inhumane policies and practices.

If you look back over Sid’s TV appearances or review his writings, as I have
been doing over the last many weeks, you see every time the intensity of his
belief and commitment to advancing health.

Sid first partnered with Ralph Nader to call attention to a deadly problem with
intravenous fluids. In early 1971, a doctor phoned Sid to complain about the
government’s failure to ban contaminated intravenous fluids. Hundreds of
patients who had received fluids from Abbott Laboratories had developed severe
bacterial infections, and dozens had died.

Instead of ordering a product recall, the government merely warned doctors to
watch for infections and stop using the fluids if they spotted any. Sid called
his then-acquaintance Ralph, who suggested they write to the FDA demanding a ban
and release the letter to the press.

Within a few days of the letter hitting the news, Abbott recalled the
contaminated fluids. “I was very surprised that we’d won,” Sid said. “It was
very satisfying to see that if you did your homework and had the facts on your
side, you could succeed.”

As The New York Times later reported: “Dr. Wolfe started getting calls on other issues. He was
hooked. He proposed that he and Mr. Nader begin a health research group, the
first specialty group within Public Citizen.”

During those early days at Public Citizen, Sid told Ralph that the Health
Research Group job would be the last one he ever had. He was true to his word.

Sid said that he learned from that initial experience with Abbott fluids that 1)
government agencies are often in possession of clear, unequivocal evidence and
not using their powers to get documented serious hazards off the market and 2)
“government agencies must have outside pressure to use their authority to save
lives and prevent injuries.” Generating that outside pressure became his
mission.

Sid headed the Health Research Group from 1971 until 2013, when at the age of 76
he handed the reins over to Dr. Michael Carome. Sid didn’t retire. Instead, he
remained at Public Citizen and continued his work, although, as he proudly said,
he downgraded his hours to 45 or so a week. Mike Carome was an extraordinary
director of Health Research Group until retiring earlier this year. Sid kept
working. In July, Dr. Robert Steinbrook became the third director of the Health
Research Group. Full of vigor until diagnosed with a brain tumor, Sid had
planned on working for many years more with Robert and the team at Health
Research Group.

Sid innovated a whole new way to advocate for drug and medical device safety and
public health through his approach of research-based advocacy. This involved
doing academic-level, independent, rigorous analysis of safety and efficacy
information. But the goal wasn’t to publish in academic journals (although Sid
often did); it was to deploy that analysis for advocacy campaigns to get
dangerous products off the market or advance health and safety policies. That
meant bringing the evidence to policy makers and pressuring them to respond to
the evidence and public health, rather than corporate entreaties. It meant
translating the information to easy-to-understand language for the public, so
they could demand appropriate change.

And it meant sticking with issues as long as it took. In some cases, the FDA
acted on safety recommendations Public Citizen made decades earlier. Sid
regarded those FDA actions less as victories or as “I told you so moments,” than
as failures. The agency should have acted decades earlier and many people were
needlessly hurt in the interim.

Here’s what I mean: The FDA banned surgical powdered latex gloves — which pose
serious risks both to patients and health workers — in 2016. We had first
petitioned the agency for this action in 1998. “The fact that it took the FDA 18
years to propose banning powdered surgical gloves from the market highlights how
recklessly negligent the agency is,” Sid said. “There is absolutely no new
scientific information today that we didn’t have in 1998 about the dangers posed
by cornstarch powder and by latex when used in surgical and patient examination
gloves.”

Research-based advocacy also meant finding new ways to gather data, such as
anonymously surveying FDA drug reviewers about degrading standards at their
agency, or surveying county jail staff about inmates with serious mental
illness, or collecting and publishing information on every doctor in the United
States who had been disciplined at a time when that information was not
otherwise available.

Research-based advocacy meant getting information to consumers, and in this,
too, Sid was endlessly creative. With his colleagues at Health Research Group,
he published multiple editions of Worst Pills, Best Pills , a monumental book that provided people with information about the side
effects of medications and warned of drug interactions. Starting with the first edition
in 1988, the book sold 2.5 million copies — the proceeds from those sales helped
pay for Public Citizen’s headquarters building. Worst Pills, Best Pills has been supplemented by a website, WorstPills.org, which is updated regularly,
and Worst Pills, Best Pills News , a monthly newsletter with a peak circulation of more than 150,000. Sid
appeared regularly on The Phil Donahue Show — Phil Donahue became a close friend of Sid and of Public Citizen — explaining
in authoritative and easy-to-understand terms the risks of various medicines and
the best available alternatives.

Research-based advocacy also meant using litigation, based on scientific
evidence, to force recalcitrant agencies to act. The superb lawyers at our
Litigation Group worked with Sid on countless legal actions to force government
agencies to respond to our petitions and to disclose vital health information.

Sid’s body of work and his achievements — accomplished in partnership with
amazing colleagues in Health Research Group, other Public Citizen staff, and
allies outside the organization — are jaw-dropping. Under Sid’s guidance, Public
Citizen:

* Helped to force 28 dangerous medications off the market, limited the use of
10 more, and added strong warnings to dozens of others.

* Pushed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to set more than a
dozen worker-protective health standards.

* Testified before hundreds of FDA advisory committees urging against approval
of dangerous drugs and devices, and for limited use or strong warning labels
of others, with substantial influence over countless decisions and helping
prevent many dangerous products from ever making it to market.

* Won a ban of Red Dye No. 2, obtained warning labels about Reye’s syndrome on
the side of aspirin bottles, and helped impose restrictions on silicone
breast implants.

* Sold 2.5 million copies of Worst Pills, Best Pills .

* Documented weakening standards at the FDA following passage of the first
Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which made drug companies a major revenue
source for the agency.

* Won earlier public access to safety and efficacy information for products
being considered for approval by the FDA, enabling more effective advocacy by
consumer advocates.

* Advocated for decades against drug company marketing of dangerous opioids and
demanded accountability for the drug companies and the corporate CEOs who
fueled the deadly opioid addiction epidemic.

That mind-blowing list is very abbreviated. Sid and colleagues also did 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.

Sid helped build Public Citizen into the vital and durable institution it is
today. He made a name for the organization by making a difference. He inspired
legions of medical students and made Public Citizen a name admired in the public
health community — and feared by Big Pharma. He reached millions of consumers
with his health information and literally helped enable us to buy the building
where I sit writing this remembrance.

For half a century, Sid taught so much to all of us at Public Citizen, myself
very much included: How to be strategically creative and innovative. How to
translate expertise into policy talk and, even more importantly, public
messaging. How to use the media to disseminate information and demand change.
How to do research and maintain standards of excellence. The need to insist on
accountability. How to operate with integrity and fearlessness. The power of
persistence and never giving up. How to stay motivated for the long haul. Why
passion makes a difference. Never to accept injustice. How to make a difference.

Sid and I grew very close in our more than a decade working together, rooted in
our collaborations and also our bond as native Clevelanders. When I came to
Public Citizen, Sid helped me immensely, in ways large and small, get settled
in. Over the years, I came to admire him and his work all the more, to enjoy his
sly and sometimes silly sense of humor, and to appreciate his humanity, decency
and friendship.

Public Citizen will miss the one-of-a-kind Dr. Sidney Wolfe and I will miss him
terribly as my friend.

As we remember him, we know this: Sid saved the lives of tens and tens of
thousands of people, almost none of whom will know the debt they owe to Sid.
There’s just no way to know about the drug that might have killed you but didn’t
because it was pulled from the market or never approved — due to Sid’s work.
Very few of the millions of people who benefited from safety warnings that Sid
and his colleagues forced onto drugs will know why they were able to avoid
serious health problems. The millions and millions of workers who avoided
exposure to workplace toxins and hazards because of rules that Sid and
colleagues forced into place will never know how Sid protected them from dangers
and disease.

None of that was of any concern to Sid. He knew that Health Research Group’s
work had made (and continues to make) a difference, he knew the impact on real
people, and he was proud of the work.

At age 86, he had intended to continue that work. We will honor the awesome
achievements of the great Dr. Sidney Wolfe by doing exactly that.

By continuing to campaign against unsafe drugs and devices, to hold the FDA and
Big Pharma accountable, to fight for Medicare for All, and more. By refusing to
fall prey to the logic of “pitiless abstractions” and remembering always that
the policies about which we advocate make a profound difference — often, a
life-and-death difference — to real human beings. And by trying to bring to our
work, in everything we do, Sid’s fire and passion, brilliance and integrity, and
determination and love.

In tribute to Dr. Sidney Wolfe,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen


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