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Previous Volume 353:1650-1651 October 20, 2005 Number 16 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

— Thomas Henry Huxley¹

On August 31, 2005, I resigned my post of assistant commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The agency leadership had chosen to delay indefinitely a decision about switching emergency contraception to nonprescription status. I believed that in doing so, they were disregarding the scientific and clinical evidence and the established review process and were taking an action that harms women's health by denying them appropriate access to a product that can reduce the rate of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

Dr. Wood was the assistant commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health at the Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Md., from November 2000 to August 2005. She is an adjunct associate professor at the School of Public Affairs at American University, Washington, D.C.

An interview with Dr. Wood can be heard at www.nejm.org.

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