The Democrat from Michigan, who chairs the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is busier than ever. He’s probing the FDA’s handling of Baxter’s Heparin, the blood thinner linked to hundreds of patient reactions and four deaths; TV ads for Pfizer’s Lipitor; the release of Vytorin clinical-trial data by Schering-Plough and Merck; the marketing of anemia drugs sold by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson; and the review of clinical trial data for Sanofi-Aventis’ Ketek antibiotic.

The common wisdom is that politicians are genetically inclined to beat up on the FDA and pharma, especially Democrats who control Congress and when an election year is under way. But there is more to it than that. In 2000, Stupak’s 17-year-old son, who was using the Accutane acne med, committed suicide. Stupak personally investigated whether the drug could be tied to psychiatric side effects, and went to FDA headquarters in Rockville, Md., to sift through documents. During one hearing, he held up the packaging from the dead teen’s prescription, The Wall Street Journal writes.

Stupak, 55, says his focus on the FDA and pharma doesn’t stem from the tragedy. “It’s a broken agency,” he tells the paper. “It’s not just a Democrat or a Republican in charge. I think that cancer developed in the FDA a long time ago and permeated every administration.” Still, his wife, Laurie, says that had it not been for their son’s death, “maybe he would never have had quite the awareness he has now about how government oversight, or lack of oversight, affects people’s lives. It hits home.”

His outrage last week prompted him to call for FDA commish Andy von Eschenbach to resign, a move that Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce committee, says was a mistake. Andy, he tells the Journal, is “dedicated public servant,” and “he’s certainly not done anything unethical or illegal.”