Donald Kennedy, Ph.D.
(4/4/1977 - 6/30/1979)*
Donald Kennedy, an internationally recognized neurophysiologist
who headed both the FDA and Stanford University, was born in New
York in 1931. He pursued both his undergraduate and graduate education
at Harvard, receiving the Ph. D. in biological sciences in 1956.
Following a four-year period on the faculty at Syracuse University,
Kennedy moved to the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford
in 1960, the institution where he spent the rest of his academic
career. His broad interests included comparative marine biology,
public policy, nutrition, and recombinant DNA technology.
Joseph Califano, Secretary of HEW, appointed Kennedy to head
FDA in April 1977. During the next 26 months of his tenure as
Food and Drug Commissioner the agency dealt with the repercussions
of the attempt to ban saccharin, attempted to overhaul the drug
provisions of the FD&C Act in the proposed Drug Regulation
Reform Act of 1978, and conducted a major revision of many of
its good manufacturing practices, among other developments.
Kennedy left the agency in June 1979 and returned to Stanford,
where he was first vice president for academic affairs and provost
and then, from 1980 to 1991, president of the university. In 1992
Kennedy returned to the faculty as Bing Professor of Environmental
Sciences. The many recognitions he received include honorary degrees
from Columbia, Rochester, Michigan, and Arizona, and memberships
in the National Academy of Sciences and on the editorial boards
of Science, the Journal of Neurophysiology, and
the Journal of Comparative Physiology.
* Sherwin Gardner, deputy commissioner
from 1972 to 1979, acted as commissioner on three separate occasions,
for a total of approximately 12 months, between the tenures of
Charles Edwards, Edward Schmidt, Donald Kennedy and Jere Goyan.