On December 15, 1999, interviewed for the oral history program of the FDA History Office, Dr. Ley shared that from the first controversy in his tenure as FDA Commissioner he had a "gut feeling" that his life expectancy at the FDA was probably limited. He attributed this to the administration wishing that he would "stonewall" an Academy of Medicine report supporting removal from the market of many pharmaceutical products that had been approved between 1938 and 1962 based without proof of efficacy, and that his failure to do so adversely affected the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry.