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# Former Commissioner Donald Kennedy Dead at 88
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/former-commissioner-donald-kennedy-dead-at-88/
- Published: 2020-04-22T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:12:11.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5146630

Former FDA commissioner **Donald Kennedy**, who served under **President Jimmy** **Carter** from 1977 to 1979, died 4/21 due to Covid-19\. At the time of his death, Kennedy, 88, resided at Gordon Manor residential care home in Redwood City, CA. During his 26 months at the agency, he dealt with the repercussions involving efforts to ban saccharin, attempted to overhaul the drug provisions of the Food, Drug & Cosmetic 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, an [FDA biography](https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-leadership-1907-today/donald-kennedy?ref=fdaweb.com) says. During his tenure, critics complained that the approval process for new drugs either allowed dangerous drugs onto the market or impaired innovation.

Kennedy left the agency 6/1979 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. He received his undergraduate and graduate education at Harvard, receiving a 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, where he spent the rest of his academic career.