From the “truth is stranger than fiction” department: yes, Virginia, the FDA really did appoint a veterinarian to head the Office of Women’s Health. Dr. Norris Alderson was chosen to replace Dr. Susan Wood, a key highly qualified and respected women's health expert. She resigned on 31 August 2005 to protest the FDA's handling of the application to make Plan B emergency contraception (EC -- not to be confused with RU-486) available over the counter. The good news is that FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford rethought that decision shortly afterward … but our Readers won’t believe who’s got the job now! Keep reading if you have the stomach for it …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2005/09/19/AR2005091901576.html
(reproduced here without permission; please use the URL and keep WaPo’s hit counter incrementing)
FDA Rethinks Women's ChiefToigo Is Acting Head; Agency Denies Naming Veterinary OfficialBy Marc KaufmanWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, September 20, 2005; Page A21One week ago, the Office of Women's Health of the Food and Drug Administration sent an e-mail notice to women's groups and others announcing the appointment of Norris Alderson as its new acting director.An FDA veteran trained in animal husbandry who spent much of his career in the agency's Center for Veterinary Medicine, Alderson quickly became the subject of active and largely negative comment on the Internet and elsewhere. The Office of Women's Health serves as a liaison with women's health groups and as an advocate on women's issues; critics said that a man with a primarily veterinary background could not properly fill the role.The last director, Susan Wood, resigned last month to protest the agency's unwillingness to make a decision on whether to make emergency contraception more easily available.Three days after the Alderson announcement, the FDA main press office sent out a very different announcement. It said that 20-year FDA veteran Theresa A. Toigo would be the new acting director of the women's health office, and that she would be a champion for women's health inside and outside the agency. Alderson -- and the statement announcing his appointment -- was never mentioned.Asked yesterday who exactly was running the office, FDA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said that Alderson had never been appointed acting director. She said that Toigo would take over from the departed Wood, and that her office knew nothing about the statement regarding Alderson, who is the agency's associate commissioner for science."There was no official decision made until we announced Theresa Toigo's appointment on Friday," Trevino said.The seeming mystery thickened when several women's groups said that not only did they receive e-mails announcing Alderson's appointment, but also that he was also listed on a Health and Human Services directory last week as the acting director of the office. In addition, people who have spoken with women's health office staff said that Alderson was introduced to the staff last week as the new acting director, and that he even had some one-on-one discussions with staff members about future plans.Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a longtime advocate for the FDA's women's health office, said she already had been concerned by Wood's resignation. "I was further concerned to learn last week that Dr. Norris E. Alderson, someone without women's health experience who has spent the majority of his career at the Center for Veterinary Medicine, was appointed acting director of this important office," she said in a statement yesterday.Toigo has led the FDA's Office of Special Health Issues, which works with patient advocates on issues such as AIDS and cancer. The FDA announcement of her appointment also says that she has worked with the women's health office on agency initiatives related to the inclusion of women and minorities in clinical trials.Former director Wood called Toigo a good choice. "She's a very capable and dedicated person who will do an excellent job," Wood said.But many women's health groups remain unhappy with the FDA and what they consider to be the agency's questionable leadership."Once again, this episode shows the agency's complete tone-deafness," said Kirsten Moore, director of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project. "It underscores our concern about the degree of competence at the leadership level, and about political appointees who just don't know much" about the issues before the agency.-----
Now that you have the timeline, here’s Alderson’s bio (available on the web):
Norris Alderson, Associate Commissioner for Science, FDA
Norris Alderson received a B.S. in Animal Husbandry from the University of Tennessee and a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. He joined the FDA in 1971 as a reviewer in the Bureau of Veterinary Medicine (BVM). Beginning in 1980, he held a number of management positions in the BVM research organization culminating in the position of Director, Office of Research, Center for Veterinary Medicine, a position he held from 1988 to 2001. In July 2001, he became Acting Senior Advisor for Science, FDA, and Acting Director, Office of Science Coordination and Communication, responsible for the Office of Good Clinical Practice, the Counter Terrorism Staff, and the Science Coordination and Communication Staff. In May 2002, he was appointed Senior Associate Commissioner for Science, FDA and Director, Office of Science and Health Coordination. In November 2002, the position title was changed to Associate Commissioner for Science. In this position, his responsibilities include the Office of Orphan Products Development, the Office of Women's Health, the Office of Good Clinical Practice, the Science Coordination Staff, and standards coordination. Dr. Alderson retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1997 with the rank of Colonel.
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To summarize, a man whose formal education focused on Animal Husbandry and who spent 30 of his 34 years of his career (~90%) working on non-human animals was made the nation’s top official on human women's health.
But wait -- that’s not all!
As of 16 September 2005, the FDA released a notice presenting Theresa A. Toigo as the Acting Director of the FDA Office of Women’s Health, but Alderson was still posted in the position earlier this week. Ms. Toigo’s credentials? She received a BS in Pharmacy and an MBA from Rutgers University.
Get it? She’s not a medical doctor, either! Heck, she’s not even an animal doctor. Hmm, ya think maybe she's a voodoo doctor? That would certainly be a nice corollary with Bush's voodoo science and voodoo economics.
In other words, the Bush administration and its minions and cronies just don’t think America’s women deserve to have a qualified individual in charge of the Office of Women’s Health. And yet this agency impacts millions of women’s and children’s lives by making critical decisions about prescriptions, treatment protocols, and other issues vital to the health of at least half of the nation’s population.
Friends and neighbors, we of The Scallion aren’t making this stuff up. Sadly, it would have been much funnier if we had.
