MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
Legislation forcing the Food and Drug Administration to rule on new drugs in as few as four months could endanger Americans’ health, FDA Commissioner David Kessler warned senators Wednesday. ”We are approving drugs in very short time frames, and one day we are going to make a mistake,” Kessler told a Senate committee that began debating how to revamp the agency. The FDA is responsible for ensuring Americans get safe and effective medicine, as well as safe food, cosmetics and other products. The issue is whether the FDA approves new products fast enough — and how it can help medical manufacturers speed up drug development. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-kan., has introduced legislation to force the FDA to review all “breakthrough” drugs for killer or untreatable diseases in four months, two months faster than today. Every other product, from a fat substitute for foods to a competitor for existing drugs, would be reviewed within six months. The FDA would have to meet those deadlines by 1998 or farm out its work to private companies.
50 years ago — 1971
Late winter squalls raked the Midsouth spawning tornadoes from Louisiana to Tennessee and leaving a trail of death and destruction throughout West Mississippi. Some estimates listed the tornado death toll in Mississippi in the 40s. The state Civil Defense office said it could confirm 41 deaths. Tornadoes touched down in at least 14 Mississippi communities, flattening homes and other buildings.
75 years ago — 1946
Recommendation that the University of Tennessee erect three more major buildings in Memphis as part of its huge plan for expansion throughout the state was made yesterday by Dr. James D. Hoskins of Knoxville, president of the institution, at the semiannual meeting of the Board of Trustees here. The proposed new structures are: a physiology and chemistry building at the northeast corner of Union and Dunlap; a pathology building on a site still undetermined; and a new men’s dormitory on Monroe just behind the First Church of Christ, Scientist, on Dunlap, which would double the size of the pre-messenger sent dormitory by completing a quadrangular building.
100 years ago — 1921
Just as he was leaving Court Square to cross Second Street in front of The Commercial Appeal building yesterday morning at 11 o’clock, Ernest C. Tapp, a for the Memphis branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, was held up and robbed of of $2,776. So quickly and quietly did the lone robber work that passers-by thought a friendly conversation was going on.