Sidney M. Wolfe, a physician and consumer advocate who for more than 40 years hounded the pharmaceutical sector and the Food and Drug Administration over a variety of issues, died on Jan. 1 at his home in Washington, DC. He was 86.

Dr. Wolfe’s complaints included high prices, dangerous side effects, and overlooked health hazards. His work brought a new level of transparency and accountability to medical care.

Along with the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Dr. Wolfe founded the Health Research Group in 1971 and, over the next four decades,  used it as a base for his relentless campaigns on behalf of healthcare users. At the door to his office, on the seventh floor of a dingy building near Dupont Circle in Washington, he hung a sign that read “Populus lamdudum defultatus est” — roughly translated from Latin as “The people have been screwed long enough.”

Dr. Wolfe received a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “genius grant,” in 1990. From 2008 to 2012, he served on the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, a part of the FDA. He retired from running the Health Research Group in 2013, but remained active, insisting that he had significantly cut back his time commitment from 60 or more hours a week to a mere 40 to 45.