James L. Goddard, M.D.
1/17/1966 - 7/1/1968
James L. Goddard, born in Alliance, Ohio in 1923, served in the
Army during World War II before completing his M. D. at George Washington
University in 1949. Following a short-lived stint in private medical
practice in Ohio, Goddard began his long tenure in the Public Health
Service in 1951, which was interrupted from 1954 to 1955 by his
graduate work at the Harvard School of Public Health that culminated
in the M. P. H. After a one-year traineeship in a driver research
and testing center for the New York State Department of Health,
Goddard headed the PHS Accident Prevention Program in Washington,
D. C., from 1956 to 1959, where he helped lead the push for auto
safety belts. His career in public health continued as director
of the medical program in the Federal Aviation Agency for the following
three years. In 1962 Goddard was named head of the Communicable
Disease Center in Atlanta, the youngest person at that time to hold
that post.
Though Goddard had expressed a desire to be appointed Surgeon
General, HEW Secretary John Gardner instead assigned the career
PHS officer to another departmental post that needed to be filled,
Commissioner of Food and Drugs, and Goddard began his tenure at
FDA in January 1966. "Go-Go" Goddard, as he was known
to his staff, reorganized the agency in the wake of mounting Congressional
criticism on a host of topics, and many upper level officials
resigned or retired in the process. The pharmaceutical industry
in particular bore much of Goddard's regulatory enthusiasm; drug
recalls grew by nearly 75 percent in his first year. Dr. Goddard
implemented major management changes in the agency by placing
primary responsibility on district directors in the field for
routine regulatory and administrative decision making. This reversed
the long standing headquarters centered modus operandi of the
agency. Among other major initiatives launched during Goddard's
commissionership, fiscal and organizational efforts facilitated
the agency's scientific capabilities, FDA contracted with the
National Academy of Sciences to conduct an efficacy review of
about 4000 pre-1962 drugs, and voluntary compliance was promoted
in accord with the recommendations of the second Citizens Advisory
Committee report.
Goddard left the agency for an executive position with a medical/industrial
systems analysis firm, EDP Technology of Atlanta, allegedly over
his disappointment at not being named head of the Consumer Protection
and Environmental Health Service (a fleeting attempt to combine
FDA and similar agencies under one umbrella). Goddard received
numerous honors for his career in public service, including honorary
doctorates from the University of Michigan and Emory University,
and the Bronfman Prize of the American Public Health Association,
the highest public health award in this country.