Andrew Green, The Lancet, April 19, 2025
Susan Franklin Wood was an influential health policy expert who focused on women’s health. Born on Nov 5, 1958, in Jacksonville, FL, USA, she died of brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme on Jan 17, 2025, in London, UK, aged 66 years.
In 2005, Susan Wood resigned her position at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an act of conscience after agency officials indefinitely delayed approving over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception, despite evidence of its safety. Wood’s decision gained national attention for the scientist and advocate, who was “a consummate insider, with the courage to become an outsider when she faced a blatant violation of scientific integrity”, said Cindy Pearson, the former Executive Director of the National Women’s Health Network. Wood’s resignation underscored a career spent “standing her ground for what was right from a health and evidence point of view, for what would benefit the greater number of people”, said Judy Norsigian, co-founder and former Executive Director of Our Bodies Ourselves. “She was an advocate for women’s health on so many fronts.”
Wood studied biology and psychology at what is now Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, USA, graduating in 1980. After a doctorate in biology from the Boston University Marine Program in 1989, she moved to Washington, DC, to serve as Science Advisor and later Deputy Director for the bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. Pearson said that Wood was “the key behind-the-scenes person supporting US Congresswomen when they successfully demanded that the National Institutes of Health establish an Office of Research on Women’s Health and require all clinical research to include women”, unless there was a scientific rationale not to. In 1995, [….] 5 years later, she joined the FDA as Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health. “She consistently promoted transparency and trying to control conflicts of interest and making sure that people are looking at the scientific evidence and making decisions informed by that and not purely driven by political forces”, said Liz Borkowski, Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University (GW) Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, DC. That included the controversy around the emergency contraception levonorgestrel, known as Plan B. Despite critics who claimed its use was the equivalent of ending a pregnancy, an FDA advisory panel approved Plan B for non-prescription use in 2003. But in August, 2005, the FDA indefinitely delayed a decision on making levonorgestrel available to women older than 17 years. After learning of the decision, Wood decided to resign. “It wasn’t really quitting my job and doing some protest action”, she said in a 2019 interview. “It was, I have to step away. I can’t condone this decision, because it’s wrong in so many different ways. It’s abusive of the regulatory process.”
Wood “spent the next 2 years giving talks about scientific integrity and women’s reproductive rights”, Pearson said. “She helped build a movement that led to the eventual approval of Plan B, and later the first daily use over-the-counter contraceptive pill. Not many scientists are willing to put themselves at the service of a movement. Susan was that person.” In 2006, Wood joined the Milken Institute School of Public Health as an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. 2 years later, she became Director of GW’s Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health, the journal of which is Women’s Health Issues (WHI), and Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management. In these roles she led research, was an inspiring educator and mentor, made WHI influential, and worked to ensure that evidence on many areas of women’s health led to changes in policy and health care. Wood emphasised “how important it was to have scientific standards that make sense and that safeguard people’s health”, said Diana Zuckerman, President of the National Center for Health Research in Washington, DC. Always eager to collaborate, Wood “took the time to create multiple alliances in many different communities”, Norsigian said. “She was always happy to spread the knowledge and help make other people champions for women’s health,” Borkowski said.
Wood retired in 2022 and was Professor Emerita in the Departments of Health Policy and Management and Environmental and Occupational Health at GW. She is survived by her husband, Richard Payne, and their daughter, Bettie Wood Payne. Wood was “a role model for how to go about making positive change”, Norsigian said.
Read the full obituary in The Lancet here.