The FDA's 'Quiet Savior' Of Government Intervention

In 2010, the New York Times dubbed her our “Quiet Savior from Harmful Medicines.” That same year, FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg presented her with the eponymous Dr. Frances O. Kelsey Award for Excellence and Courage in Protecting Public Health. In 2000, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Frances Oldham Kelsey died last August at the age of 101. Her life was reexamined and celebrated in much the same way as it has been for decades, but the New York Times said it best. Kelsey—likely unwittingly—became an FDA mascot, and her perceived heroism as a “savior from medicine” says everything about the agency today.