FDA taps family doctor for women’s health post

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration on Monday tapped a family doctor to lead its
women’s health office, replacing the previous director who
resigned in protest over the agency’s failure to approve
over-the-counter emergency contraception.

Kathleen 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, the
agency said in a statement.

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
Inc.’s bid to sell its Plan B contraceptive without a
prescription.

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

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.

Barr’s application has been lingering 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.

A captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, she also
teaches at the Uniformed Services University of the Health
Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.