Former FDA chief David Kessler will help lead Operation Warp Speed for Biden
WASHINGTON — President-elect Biden has tapped David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration chief and a key adviser to his campaign, to lead the president-elect’s version of the Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, a Biden official told STAT.
Kessler is something of a controversial choice. His list of accomplishments at the FDA — he pushed the agency to expand its role to regulate tobacco, he implemented the user fee system and the adverse event reporting system — is long and bold. But until he began advising the Biden campaign on the pandemic, he had not worked in government for more than 20 years, since serving as Clinton’s FDA secretary.
