David A. Kessler

David A. Kessler, M.D., served as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He served as Chief Science Officer for Covid Response for the administration of President Joe Biden and co-led Operation Warp Speed. As Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Kessler acted to speed approval of new drugs and placed high priority on getting promising therapies for serious and life-threatening diseases to patients as quickly as possible, including the accelerated approval for a dozen major drugs in the treatment of HIV-AIDS, culminating in the development of protease inhibitors. Under his direction, the FDA announced a number of new programs, including the regulation of the marketing and sale of tobacco products to children, nutrition labeling for food, prescription drug user fees, folic acid food fortification, the creation of the Office of Criminal Investigations, and the MEDWatch program for reporting adverse events and product problems. In addition, Dr. Kessler recruited a generation of talent that provided leadership at FDA, HHS, and the USDA. Dr. Kessler has served as chair of the boards of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF). At EGPAF, Dr. Kessler helped spearhead a major global effort to make drugs available to millions to end the transmission of mother-to-child HIV-AIDS. He has been dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco and is a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF.  A graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kessler is the author of Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight (2025), Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs: The Simple Truth About Food, Weight, and Disease (2020), Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering (2016), The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite (2009), and A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry (2001).