X-SciTech

Red Cross Head Stepping Down

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 26, 2001 / 3:01 PM EDT / CBS

American Red Cross President Bernadine Healy, one of the few medical doctors to lead the influential and popular charity, is resigning her post at year's end after two years on the job.

"The decision to leave a great job at one of America's most admired institutions has not been an easy one," Healy said, saying she would retire effective Dec. 31.

"But having directed the American Red Cross through its finest hours following the Sept. 11 attacks, and having served as a change agent over the past two years to initiate needed reform in its key programs, the time now seems right for new challenges in my own career."

Healy, a CBS News consultant, gave no official reason for leaving, but alluded to two of the many controversies that have filled her tenure, including Israel's exclusion from full membership of the International Red Cross and how to spend the more than $450 million raised to help victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Regarding that fund, "I strongly oppose commingling of the moneys with any other Red Cross disaster funds," she said, saying, "reasonable people can differ."

Healy also said she had withheld administrative dues to the Red Cross' parent in Geneva over the Israel controversy, calling it a "controversial but principled stand."

"This policy is now up for grabs," she said. "Reasonable people have differed with me on this and certainly other matters."

Healy took the helm of the nation's largest charity on Sept. 1, 1999, succeeding Elizabeth Dole, who resigned to seek the Republican presidential nomination.

In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, Healy was often in the public eye. She appeared at the White House by President Bush's side and on TV in public-service announcement urging Americans to donate blood or money in the tragedy's aftermath.

Healy rankled other charities collecting money for Sept. 11 victims by refusing to go along with a coordinated effort led by the New York attorney general to keep track of how much money was being given to each family.

Her role was controversial, as many blood experts argued it was wrong to encourage blood donations when they were not needed to treat victims of the terrorist attacks. Critics worried that over-collections in the days following the attacks would force the Red Cross to discard blood that expired before it could be used.

This week, the Red Cross acknowledged that about 4.5 percent of the red blood cells collected on Sept. 11 just expired, and 6 percent collected on Sept. 12 was expected to expire. Typically, 2.5 percent of red blood cells expire 42 days after they are collected. But Red Cross officials insisted that no one's donation went to waste because plasma or other products from every donation, beyond red cells, was used.

Healy's tenure also has been marked by controversy surrounding Red Cross policies over who can donate blood and what measures must be taken to ensure its safety.

She was unable to free the organization rom a court-ordered consent decree with the Food and Drug Administration over repeated violations of blood safety rules. Although the consent decree was in place when Healy took over the Red Cross, the FDA fight has escalated in recent months as the agency attempted to charge the Red Cross millions of dollars in fines.

She also took on the FDA last summer by pushing to restrict blood donations from anyone who had made even brief visits to Britain and Europe for fear of mad cow disease. The FDA plans to enact restrictions, but they are not nearly as stringent and strongly cautioned Healy that her organization should not imply to the public that its blood is safer than that collected by blood banks following the FDA rules.

Healy, a cardiologist, was the first woman to head the National Institutes of Health. Her tenure there from 1991 to 1993 was also controversial.

At NIH, she launched a major study on women's health and pressed to have women and minorities included in all clinical trials at a time when most medical studies focused on white men.

In 1994, she made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate from Ohio before going to Ohio State University to serve as dean of the school's College of Medicine and Public Health.

A native of Queens, N.Y., Healy, 57, earned her bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1965 and medical degree from the Harvard School of Medicine in 1970.

She completed postgraduate work at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was a member of the Hopkins faculty from 1976 to 1984.

Healy was chosen in 1984 by President Reagan to be deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. From 1985 to 1991, she was chairwoman of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

The American Red Cross, with an annual budget of more than $2 billion, collects blood, organizes relief efforts around the world and trains volunteers in lifesaving skills.

The organization's board of governors will appoint an interim chief executive at a later date, said Red Cross spokeswoman Blythe Kubina.