Sidney Wolfe who had been criticizing the FDA during the past has joined Drug Safety and Risk Management unit of the FDA.

Sidney Wolfe had labelled the FDA’s 100th birthday party in 2006 a “propaganda campaign” to hide the agency’s “unprecedented assault on the American public.”

 Wolfe who was a part of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, a nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader, was responsible for the rejection of dozens of drugs. Some, like Merck’s Vioxx, had to be pulled from the market; others, like GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia, are still for sale.

His association with the FDA began when the FDA first invited him to participate in a March 2008 safety panel. Here he was instrumental in rejecting an application from the drugmaker Cephalon to expand use of its painkiller Fentora to children. In April 2008 he got a full time appointment in the panel and would serve a four-year term on the committee.

Wolfe had a belief that the FDA serves as a "tool" of the drug industry. Wolfe also supports restricting "copycat" drugs. These drugs are introduced to prevent consumers from switching to lower-cost generics after the patent of an original medication is lost.