KAREN EFFREM, MD
Dr. Karen Effrem is a pediatrician, researcher, and conference speaker. Dr. Effrem’s undergraduate degree is in Pharmacy from Purdue University, her medical degree is from Johns Hopkins University and her pediatric training is from the University of Minnesota. She has provided testimony for Congress, as well as in-depth analysis of numerous pieces of major federal education, health, and early childhood legislation for congressional staff, state legislatures, and many organizations. Besides serving on the board of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, Dr. Effrem is president of Educatio... Continue reading →
MARCIA ANGELL, MD
The first woman Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, currently Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Her book, The Truth About the Drug Companies (2004). Her rude awakening to the “ubiquitous” conflicts of interest in medicine was when she was pushed out of in her position at the NEJM. In her last editorial in the NEJM, Is Academic Medicine for Sale? (2000) Dr. Angell wrote: . . . corporate influence in medicine is ubiquitous, extending far beyond individual physician-researchers: its influence determines what research is conducted, how it is do... Continue reading →
FRED A. BAUGHMAN, JR., MD
Fred A. Baughman Jr, MD, a neurologist in private practice for 35 years. He differentiates diagnoses of “disease” (real diseases — epilepsy, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, etc.) from “no disease” diagnoses (emotional, psychological, psychiatric). He has discovered and described real, bona fide diseases. He accuses psychiatry of having made up a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive — they termed them a ‘disease.’ Dr.... Continue reading →
TONI BARK, MD
Toni Bark, MD, MHEM, LEED is licensed in Illinois. She received her medical degree from Rush Medical College in 1986, and did postgraduate internship in Pediatrics and Rehabilitative Medicine at New York University; and her Pediatric Residency at the University of Illinois. She has experience as the medical director of hospital Pediatric Emergency Room, the Neonatal Intensive Care Units, and in Emergency Occupational Medicine. She then trained in classical homeopathy and served as Medical Director of several Alternative Medicine Centers. She opened a private practice; the Center for Disease Pr... Continue reading →
SYDNEY BRENNER, MD
Dr. Sydney Brenner, PhD, Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine (2002), deplores the current profit-driven culture in science. A culture in which he believes -- as do a significant growing number of genuine scientists and physicians -- genuine breakthroughs and important discoveries are impeded. In a recent interview in King’s Review magazine (2014) he expressed his critical views of the current profit-driven culture in science which he believe is producing rubbish while impeding genuine scientific breakthroughs and discoveries which do not follow the dictates of commerce. He deplores t... Continue reading →
NORA COFFEY
Nora Coffey is a prominent women’s health advocate, activist and educator who founded the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation in 1982. The foundation is the only independent nonprofit organization solely dedicated to the alternatives to and aftermath of hysterectomy. In 1978, Nora Coffey, then in her mid-thirties, had surgery which sent shock waves throughout her body and changed her life forever. The operation removed both her uterus (hysterectomy) and her ovaries (castration). However, contrary to what Coffey had been advised by both her medical and lay res... Continue reading →
BERNICE EDDY, PH.D. (1903–1989)
Bernice Eddy, PhD (1903–1989) a virologist and epidemiologist at NIH, identified SV40, a cancer-causing monkey virus that millions of children were exposed to from contaminated polio vaccines. In 1954, while the NIH was testing the first commercial polio vaccines, Eddy's job was to test the vaccines from five different companies. She and her staff worked around the clock testing each of the vaccines on 18 monkeys: “This was a product that had never been made before and they were going to use it right away in children.” She discovered that the inactivated vaccine manufactured by Cutter... Continue reading →
CARL ELLIOTT, MD, PH.D.
Carl Elliott, MD, PhD, is professor at the Center for bioethics, University of Minnesota. He received his medical degree from the University of South Carolina, and his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He is the author or editor of seven books including White Coat, Black Hat. Dr. Elliott’s articles have appeared in prominent publications including: The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Review of Books, Mother Jones, The New York Times, The American Scholar and The New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Elliott is a Fellow of the Hastings Cent... Continue reading →
CURT D. FURBERG, MD, PH.D.
Curt D. Furberg, MD, an internationally recognized cardiovascular epidemiologist with expertise in clinical trials, drug safety and public health. Dr. Furberg is a Professor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences at Wake Forest University who has chaired NIH’s Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack (ALLHAT) Steering Committee and has been a vocal advocate for active monitoring for serious adverse drug side effects that pose serious danger for patients. In 1995, he and colleagues published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) warning ... Continue reading →
DAVID GRAHAM, MD
David Graham, MD, an epidemiologist is FDA’s Associate Director of Drug Safety who, throughout his career, has been a thorn for FDA managers by identifying serious hazardous effects of FDA-approved drugs. In 1999, his data helped identify the risk of liver damage from Pfizer’s diabetes drug Rezulin — which eventually was withdrawn from the market. In 2004, he emerged as the most prominent FDA whistleblower whose riveting Congressional testimony was front-page news. He characterized FDA’s mishandling of Merck’s Vioxx licensure as “the worst preventable public health disaster in... Continue reading →
DIANE HARPER, MD
Professor and chair of the department of Family and Geriatric Medicine at the University of Louisville. From 2009 to 2013 she was a professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City's department of Biomedical and Health Informatics. From 1996 to 2009 she was a professor at Dartmouth Medical School and director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group. Dr. Harper received an unusually broad training as an engineer, medical researcher, epidemiologist, obstetrician, gynecologist and clinician in family medicine clinician. She has the academic training and research credibility at a le... Continue reading →
BERNADINE HEALY, MD (1944–2011)
Bernadine Healy, MD, a cardiologist, was the first woman Director of the National Institutes of Health (1991–1993); Dean of Ohio State University College of Medicine (1995–1999); President of the American Heart Association (1998–1999); Deputy Director of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Techonology; Chair of the Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (1985); and President and CEO of the American Red Cross (1999–2001). Dr. Healy turned the NIH around at a critical phase when the agency was beset by bureaucratic infighting and political interference; i... Continue reading →
JAY KATZ, MD (1922–2008)
An eminent scholar, a professor of law and ethics at Yale Law School who spent more than 50 years tackling confounding questions on the boundaries between law, medicine, psychology and ethics. An inspirational teacher and mentor not only to his law students at Yale, but, as one of his distinguished students and colleagues, Alexander Capron, professor of law and medicine at the University of Southern California, wrote in his preface to a special issue of Law, Medicine and Health Care (2007) dedicated to Jay Katz, a mentor “for many physicians and other health professionals across the country ... Continue reading →
FRANCES OLDHAM KELSEY, MD, PH.D.
Frances Oldham Kelsey MD, PhD, has earned her place as “America’s Greatest Living Heroine” — she turned 100 on July 24, 2014. Dr. Kelsey was the medical pharmacologist at the FDA who refused to license thalidomide for the U.S. market despite the enormous pressures put upon her by a pharmaceutical company. Her determination not to license the drug until its safety was demonstrated by evidence spared Americans from the worst pharmaceutical catastrophe in history. Furthermore, as a result of the magnitude of the averted harm, Congress enacted amendments to the Food and Drug laws requir... Continue reading →
TOM KOCH, PH.D.
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 and consultant specializing in issues of chronic care as well as the study of the environmental and social determinants of endemic and epidemic disease. His more than 15 books and 300 articles include the first books on elder care from the perspective of the caregi... Continue reading →
JOHN ANTHONY MORRIS, MD (1919–2014)
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 1959, Dr. Morris was recruited by FDA’s Division of Biologics (DBS) to be Chief Vaccine Control Officer to conduct research about influenza, as a heated controversy was brewing within the public health community about the efficacy of the first flu vaccine. High level of... Continue reading →
LOREN MOSHER, MD (1933–2004)
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 first Editor in Chief of Schizophrenia Bulletin, and he coauthored the textbook Community Mental Health: Principles and Practice which has been translated into five languages; he wrote or edited numerous scientific articles. Dr. Mosher spent his entire professional career seeking more humane and... Continue reading →
HERBERT NEEDLEMAN, MD
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 of his findings. While this has made him the target of frequent attacks, he has fought off his critics with courage, tenacity and dignity. Dr. Needleman continues his work today, despite having already played a key role in one of the greatest envi... Continue reading →
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, (1820–1920)
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 visited almost every hospital in Europe, analyzed them and then wrote up a report. In the post-war period, she studied new designs for modern hospitals all over Europe, in order to help the army reform its health and sanitary systems. In Paris she found a rev... Continue reading →
NANCY OLIVIERI, MD
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 foremost moral obligation to protect her patients and research subjects from harm. Dr. Olivieri headed the thalassemia research program at the Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) of the University of Toronto. Thalassemia is a serious blood disorder that can be fatal if... Continue reading →
MAURICE HENRY PAPPWORTH, MD
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 rejected because he was a Jew who would not have been accepted by fee-paying patients in Belgravia, Chelsea, and Mayfair. Indeed, when he applied for a post in 1939, he was told that “no Jew could ever be a gentleman. . .” He went on to establish himself as an independent med... Continue reading →
JOHN PESANDO, MD, PH.D.
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 Research Center in Seattle. “What you’ve got in this guy is a rarity. You’ve got somebody who has the credentials. He’s seen all this, he’s on the inside, and he’s coming forward. That’s very, very rare.” Dr. Pesando, who was a member of the Institutional Review Board, was concerned abou... Continue reading →
JACOB PULIYEL, MD, MRCP, M PHIL
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 received his medical degree from the University of Jabalpur, his postgraduate certificate in Pediatrics from the Royal Colleges of Physicians in the UK. Dr. Puliyel received the Sir James Flett Gold Medal of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics for outstanding research in drug abuse among adolescents; and was the Invited Guest Lecturer at the St. Georges Medical School where he delivered a lectur... Continue reading →
BARBARA SEAMAN, (1935–2008)
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 companies by exposing their drive for profits at the expense of women's health. In 1960, Barbara Seaman introduced a new style of health reporting that centered more on the patient, and less on the medical fads of the day. She was first to reveal that ... Continue reading →
THOMAS SZASZ , MD (1920–2012)
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 the legitimacy of his field; Dr. Szasz saw psychiatry’s medical foundation as shaky at best, placing the discipline “in the company of alchemy and astrology.” The book became a sensation in mental health circles, as well as a bible for those who fe... Continue reading →
JOHN W. THOMPSON, MD (1906–1965)
John W. Thompson, MD “must be counted among the saints of his century and of medicine, a person who could confront horrors that others ignored and devote his life to rectifying them.” (Paul Weindling. John W. Thompson: Psychiatrist in the Shadow of the Holocaust, 2010) Dr. Thompson was a deeply religious psychiatrist who came to Germany in April 1945 as an officer in a British-Canadian Air Force group (RAF 84) preparing for the occupation of Germany. Its mission was to search for German radar, jet engine technology, and results of scientific research. Thompson was to assess German oxyge... Continue reading →