Dr. Sidney Wolfe, co-founder and director of the Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen Health Research Group and former adviser to Ralph Nader, is this year’s Allen I. White Lecturer. He will discuss problems with the health-care system and pharmaceutical industry at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, in Spokane.
Wolfe is also an adjunct professor of internal medicine at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and a member of the American Federation for Clinical Research and the Society for General Internal Medicine.
The health research group, founded in November, 1971, has led to:
• the banning of phenformin, Oraflex, Tandearil and Suprofen
• requiring aspirin products to have a warning label about Reye’s Syndrome if children or teens use aspirin to treat colds or flu.
• the researching and banning of dangerous medical devices such as the defective Bjork-Shiley, Convexo-Concave artificial heart valve
• forcing a warning on labels and in ads for smokeless tobacco
The group published “Pills That Don’t Work, Over the Counter Pills That Don’t Work, and Worst Pills/Best Pills.”
The Allen I. White Lecture, presented by the College of Pharmacy at WSU Spokane, will be telecast live from the WSU College of Nursing, via WHETS, to WSU Pullman, WSU Tri-Cities, WSU Vancouver, Yakima Valley Community College, and Pierce College in Puyallup.
