Dr. David A. Kessler. M.D.
Former Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and
Former Dean, University of California–San Francisco Medical School
will be addressing the
Vancouver Institute on
January 25, 2014 at
8:15 p.m.,
Lecture Hall No. 2 in the
Woodward Instructional Resources Centre,
University of British Columbia.
Speaker photos still to come
Dr. Kessler is an American pediatrician, lawyer, author, and administrator (both academic and governmental). He was the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1990 to 1997. He made the agency more efficient, cutting the time needed to approve or reject new drugs, including AIDS drugs, and more vigilant in protecting consumers against unsafe products and inflated label claims. It was also under his watch that FDA enacted regulations requiring standardized Nutrition Facts labels on food. Dr. Kessler is also known for his role in the FDA's attempt to regulate cigarettes, which resulted in the FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. case. He was awarded the Public Health Hero award on April 2, 2008 by the UC Berkeley School of Public Health for his work in tobacco regulation.
