FDA women's health head resigns after Plan B decision

The Food and Drug Administration's assistant commissioner for women's health and director of the agency's office of women's health, Susan Wood, has resigned in the wake of the FDA's decision last Friday to again delay a decision on whether to allow over-the-counter sales of the contraceptive drug Plan B. The morning-after pill is made by Barr Laboratories Inc. (BRL) . A letter from Wood was released Wednesday by Reproductive Health Technologies Project, a contraceptive advocacy group, in which Wood called the decision contrary to her core commitment to improving and advancing women's health. "I have spent the last 15 years working to ensure that science informs good health policy decisions," Wood states in the letter. "I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled." A call to the FDA seeking comment was not immediately returned.