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Tuesday, January 19, 1999
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For a look at other events, click here. |
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Man with a mission
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David Kessler, former FDS commissioner, to give Charter Lecture
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By Larry B. Dendy
As commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, David Kessler was a vigorous and sometimes controversial advocate for public health, working to reduce restrictions on new drugs, regulate tobacco sales and improve food safety.
 After he resigned last March to become dean of the Yale University School of Medicine, Kessler was praised by the Los Angeles Times for “restoring the Food and Drug Administration to what it was meant to be--an aggressive advocate for the public’s health.” The New York Daily News said Americans had “lost one of their most effective champions.”
Although no longer with the FDA, Kessler continues to speak out on national health issues. He will take on one of the most volatile when he comes to the University of Georgia Jan. 25 to deliver a Charter Lecture on the topic “The Tobacco Wars.” The 4 p.m. speech in the Chapel is open free to the public.
Appointed FDA commissioner by President George Bush and reappointed by President Bill Clinton, Kessler led the agency from November 1990 until March 1997. His initiatives sometimes riled medical and industrial interests and irritated other government offices, but won the gratitude of consumers.
One of his major thrusts was pushing for quicker approval of new drugs and promising therapies for people with serious or life-threatening diseases. He sought stricter regulations on the marketing and sale of tobacco products to children, and instituted user fees for drugs and biologics.
Other efforts included better nutrition labeling for food, stronger controls to improve food safety, steps to bolster the nation’s blood supply, and the MEDWatch program for reporting problems with medical service or food and drug products.
Kessler also emphasized strong law enforcement and created an office of criminal investigation within the FDA.
The recipient of a law degree from the University of Chicago and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School, Kessler has been dean of the Yale medical school since last July.
Prior to becoming FDA commissioner, he served six years as medical director of the hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
Previously, he taught food and drug law at Columbia University School of Law and was a consultant to the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.
The author of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and other medical publications, Kessler is a member of the Institute of Medicine. He has received numerous awards, including the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor, the American Heart Association’s National Public Affairs Special Recognition Award and the March of Dimes Franklin Delano Roosevelt Leadership Award.
The Charter Lecture Series was started in 1988 to honor the high ideals expressed in the 1785 charter that created the University of Georgia as the first chartered state university in America. The series brings to UGA speakers who discuss ideas of general importance to a free society.
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Anniversary exhibition
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Before 1948: Masterpieces of American Painting from Georgia Collections. Through  March 14. Georgia Museum of Art. Open 10 a.m.--5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.--9 p.m. Wednesday; and 1--5 p.m. Sunday. 542-4662.
In honor of the museum’s 50th anniversary, this exhibition showcases some of the finest examples of American art from throughout Georgia. Before 1948 commemorates the year that the museum first opened its doors to the public with the collection of American paintings assembled by Alfred Holbrook, the museum’s founder.
The exhibition includes 50 works by noted masters, including George Cooke, James Peale, Eastman Johnson, Thomas Moran, Sanford R. Gifford, John Singer Sargent, John Sloan, Robert Henri, Leon Kroll, Lee Krasner and John Marin. Works by lesser-known artists are also included.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by award-winning Georgia writer Terry Kay.
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Candid camera
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Reverence for Decay: A Photographic View of Ellis Island in its Present State. Photographs by Peter Frey. Through Feb. 12. SED Gallery, Caldwell Hall. Open weekdays 9 a.m.--5 p.m., till 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, and Sundays 7--9 p.m. 542-3672.
 Frey is a 1994 graduate of the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the Columns photo editor. His photographs of the immigration center on Ellis Island demonstrate the current state of this significant locus in American history.
The display is offered in conjunction with a Jan. 22 lecture by Richard Wells. The lecture, at 3:30 p.m. in the law school auditorium, is called “Ellis Island and the Lamp Beside the Golden Door.”
Wells, a UGA landscape architecture graduate profiled in the current issue of Georgia Magazine, is working to restore the main building at Ellis Island, where 12 million immigrants were processed between 1892 and 1924. He will discuss the restoration effort. The lecture will be followed by a reception.
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Ethics seminar
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“Ethics and the Coastal Scientist,” Orrin Pilkey, James B. Duke Professor of Geology and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Duke University. 7:30 p.m. Ecology seminar room. Sponsored by Environmental Ethics Certificate Program. 542-0935.
Research at Duke’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines focuses on shoreline stabilization, barrier-island evolution, mathematical models of beach behavior and related topics. Pilkey is co-editor and sometimes co-author of the ongoing 20-volume, state-specific Living with the Shore series published by Duke Press.
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Panel discussion
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“Amistad and the Truth.” 4--5:30 p.m. Griffith Auditorium. Sponsored by Georgia Museum of  Art and Center for Humanities and Arts. 542-0487.
UGA faculty will participate in a roundtable discussion moderated by Carl Walton of Morris Brown University, Atlanta. Freda Scott Giles (drama), Michael Gomez (history), Richard Neupert (drama) and Karim Traoré (comparative literature) will address the film’s accuracy, the screenwriter’s and the director’s obligations to historical events, the reception of the film by African-American viewers and the relation of the film to the history of human rights. A reception follows. The Tate Theater is offering three free screenings of the film on Jan. 20.
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