February 2, 1995: Vol26n15: >FDA Commissioner will deliver Harrington Lecture

FDA Commissioner will deliver
Harrington Lecture
David A. Kessler, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, will deliver the D.W. Harrington Lecture at 4 p.m. on
Thursday, Feb. 9, in Butler Auditorium in Farber Hall on the South
Campus.
	The lecture, "Accelerated Approval of Drugs for Serious and
Life-threatening Diseases," is free and open to the public.
	The FDA is responsible for enforcing the Federal Food, Drug,
and Cosmetic Act and several related public-health laws. It also
examines the results of drug studies and approves new drugs, and
protects the safety of food, cosmetics and the nation's blood
supply. Dyes and additives also come under FDA scrutiny, as well as
medical devices such as pacemakers.
	FDA commissioner since 1990, Kessler served as the medical
director of the Montefiore Medical Center, hospital of the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, from 1984-1990. Since his appointment to
the FDA, he has been on leave from his post as associate professor of
pediatrics, epidemiology and social medicine at Albert Einstein and as
a law lecturer in the Julius Silver Program in Law, Science and
Technology at Columbia University School of Law.
	He serves as vice chair, ex officio, of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria
for Food, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine Forum on Drug
Development and Regulation, the Institute of Medicine AIDS Roundtable
and the National Cancer Board, ex officio. He served as chair of the
Drugs and Biologics Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on the FDA
in 1990.
	A graduate of Amherst College, he received his medical degree
from Harvard Medical School and law degree from the University of
Chicago School of Law.