Tom Koch PhD, is among the best known, most prolific writers you’ve probably never heard about. An ethicist, writer, and researcher specializing in the care of the fragile, he holds a multi-disciplinary PhD (medicine, ethics/philosophy, geography) from the University of British Columbia. In Toronto he serves as a medical ethicist…
John Anthony Morris, MD, a bacteriologist and virologist who trained at Walter Reed Hospital. He had a distinguished career researching viral and respiratory diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1940s to 1976. In the mid-1950s NIH assigned him to investigating vaccines and their risk factors, and in…
Loren Mosher, MD, a psychiatrist who espoused drug-free treatment for schizophrenia. He was a graduate of Stanford and Harvard Medical School. He served as the first chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia of the National Institutes of Mental Health from 1968 to 1980. He was the founder and…
Herbert Needleman, MD, A pediatrician and child psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Dr. Needleman is distinguished as a researcher who, having determined the developmental implications of excessive exposure to lead, has worked tirelessly and at great personal cost to force governments and industry to confront the implications…
Florence Nightingale was one of the most influential women in 19th century England; a brilliant medical analyst and organizer, a reformer who championed the use of statistics for evaluating the practice of medicine. After the Crimean War (1853–1856) where she witnessed how thousands of British soldiers died from infections, Nightingale…
Nancy Olivieri, MD is widely recognized as one of the preeminent crusaders for research integrity, best interest of patient, academic freedom and as a critic of the ever-expanding corporate influence at universities. She has demonstrated great courage — at great sacrifice — when she acted in accordance with the physician’s…
Maurice Henry Pappworth, MD, (1910–1994) was, by any standard, a controversial figure. “A life-long outsider he chose an unconventional career path as a private medical tutor rather than accept anything less than his first job choice — a consultant post in a London teaching hospital.” By all accounts he was…
John Pesando MD, PhD, an oncologist, did what few doctors have the courage to do; which is to blow the whistle on wrongdoing at his own medical center. Dr. Pesando risked his career by sounding the alarm over Protocol 126, a dangerous, unethical human experiment at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer…
Jacob Puliyel, MD, MRCP, M Phil, heads pediatrics at St. Stephens Hospital Delhi, India, and member of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) of the Government of India. Dr. Puliyel leads a group of concerned pediatricians, health care activists, teachers in Public Health and public officials who challenge…
Barbara Seaman, an author, and patients’ rights advocate who was one of the first people to bring women’s reproductive health to wide public attention. She was an energizing influence on hundreds of younger writers and organizers for nearly half a century. Barbara Seaman persistently challenged the medical establishment and pharmaceutical…
Richard Smith, MD. Former Editor British Medical Journal (BMJ), a founder member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, a trustee of the UK Research Integrity Office. Dr. Smith is a fervent critic of current research and publication practices. In a provocative recent article in Times Higher Education (2015) he states,…
Thomas Szasz, MD, “Psychiatrist Who Led Movement Against His Field” — He trained at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis; served in the military at the US naval hospital, Bethesda; but “felt viscerally upset” by “the dehumanized language of psychiatry and psychoanalysis.” His 1961 book The Myth of Mental Illness questioned…
