Family doctor will pick up women's health post at FDA

Nov 21 2005

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has chosen a family doctor to lead its women's health office.

Kathleen Uhl will replace Susan Wood the previous director who resigned in protest over the agency's failure to approve over-the-counter emergency contraception.

According to the FDA, Uhl, a supervisor for the agency's drug division and a practicing physician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., will take over the office next month.

She will replace Susan Wood, who stepped down from the Office of Women's Health in September after the FDA indefinitely postponed a decision on Barr Pharmaceuticals bid to sell its Plan B contraceptive without a prescription.

Wood, a career scientist who worked at the FDA for nearly five years, said the stalled decision served to undercut women's health, and staff who had supported nonprescription sales had been overruled.

The FDA staff as well as most women's and medical groups support easier access for the drug as a way to prevent abortions and unwanted pregnancies, while conservatives argue it will cause more promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

The agency has been accused of allowing politics to influence its decision.

Barr's application has now been stalled at the agency for more than two years.

Uhl currently serves as supervisor in the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, where she began working 1998 as a drug reviewer.

She is a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, and also teaches at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.