STPM Participants - Raymond Ryckman, Phd

STPM Participants
Raymond Ryckman, PhD

Raymond E. Ryckman, PhD (left),

Raymond E. Ryckman, PhD, became the foremost authority on Triatoma. This work is still highly important to public health in Central and South America.

In the Memoirs of Doctor Bruce W. Halstead, he talks about the establishment and development of the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine for Loma Linda University from 1948 to 1958. In reference to his close friend and his involvement with the STPM, Doctor Halstead writes:

"We were able to obtain a small amount of money with which we hired a medical entomologist by the name of Dr. Raymond Ryckman, a vey bright, dedicated and energetic medical entomologist who had just received his Ph.D degree from University of California At Berkeley (UCB).

Ray had his Department of Medical Entomology office on the second floor adjacent to my department. Ray later cleaned out tons of debris from the third floor which he convcerted into his medical entomology laboratory.

Shortly after his arrival Dr. Ryckman obtained a research contract with the Army on insect vectors of military importance and rapidly expanded his research operations working with insect pesticides, his beloved Triatoma Kisssing bug vectors of Chagas disease, and fleas capable of spreading bubonic plague. Much of his research time was conducted in the field collecting insects and testing some of the Army's newer insecticides."

[From LLU website - http://llumc.com/news/today/today_story.php?id=478 ]

The emergence of research: Historical insights from the emergence of research at Loma Linda University
By Barry L. Taylor, PhD

The STPM hired well and built a strong research team. Dr. Ryckman, a medical entomologist trained at University of California, Berkeley, joined the team and obtained contracts with the Army to study various vectors. He became the foremost authority on Triatoma, the “kissing bug” that is the vector for Chagas disease.

This work is still highly important to public health in Central and South America, and as a result, the Communicable Dise ase Center of the United States Public Health Service republished Dr.Ryckman’s dissertation and an annotated bibliography of 23,000 references in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English only a few years ago. This research was supported in part by funding from the World Health Organization.

Raymond E. Ryckman, PhD (left), became the foremost authority on Triatoma. This work is still highly important to public health in Central and South America.

Loma Linda University Pays Tribute

Ray Ryckman
and
School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

Ray Ryckman got some long over due recognition from an institution that he has served most all of his professional life. He is the only person left that was deeply involved with the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine. As such he is the one person who still knows most of the history and politics involved with STPM, Bruce W. Halstead, and Loma Linda University back when it was still called the College of Medical Evangelist.

STPM was founded by Dr.s Mozar and Halstead back in 1948. Dr. Halstead left in 1958 and started the World Life Research Institute. Halstead and Ryckman have long been friends. Ray was in Bruce and Joy's wedding. It was Bruce that advised Ray to go get an undergraduate degree from U. C. Berkeley in zoology, just like he had done.

When the original STPM building was torn down, Ryckman was able to salvage some of the windows and the original sign. He used the windows to build a greenhouse and he put the sign over his front porch. For Ray Ryckman, being part of the STPM and the history involved, is something that he feels proud to be a part of as he was. Under STPM, Doctor Halstead was singlehandedly the first person to ever conduct research at Loma Linda and in doing so he got the first grants and pioneered the grant funding of research at Loma Linda as well.





School of Public Health honors students at awards banquet



The School of Public Health gave out its diplomas on June 10, but the evening before, the School also gave out multiple awards to students, faculty, alumni, and staff at the annual awards banquet.

David Dyjack, DrPH, CIH (right), honors
Raymond Ryckman, PhD, and Carolyn Stuyvesant, MS.

The School paid tribute to the past, as well. An old sign reading “School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine” was put on display. This organization at LLU was a forerunner to the current School of Public Health, which was established in 1967 and is celebrating 40 years of existence this year. The sign was borrowed from Raymond Ryckman, PhD, emeritus professor of microbiology, School of Medicine, who was also involved in the early days of public health at LLU.

Dr. Ryckman and Carolyn Stuyvesant, MS, an early public health student, were recognized by David Dyjack, DrPH, CIH, School of Public Health dean.

Dr. Dyjack also gave special recognition to Susanne Montgomery, PhD, MPH, and Christine Neish, PhD, for their hard work and dedicated service to the School. Dr. Montgomery has worked at the School for about 12 years, and she served for the past two years as the School’s associate dean for academic affairs. She recently stepped down from this administrative post in order to focus on research, and she is now director of the School’s Center for Health Research.

Dr. Neish has worked in the School of Public Health since 1973. While she still holds a secondary appointment in the SPH, as of summer 2006 her primary appointment is now in the LLU School of Nursing.

To Read Full Story on LLU website - CLICK HERE

Bruce and Joy Halstead Wedding Picture
Raymond Ryckman is in uniform

Prior to The School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

The Genesis of
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Prior to 1948 and the STPM
A Halstead Perspective

The History of Tropical Medicine, the meaning of “Preventive”, the Adventist contribution and the Bruce W. Halstead Perspective on the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

Table of Contents

I. The Colonial Roots of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

II. Sir Doctor Patrick Manson - Father of Tropical Medicine

III. The Role and Purpose of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

IV. Early Definition for the Term “Preventive Medicine”

V. The Role and Contribution of the Adventist Health Message

VI. Halstead’s Background, Influence, and Focus on
Tropical and Preventive Medicine prior to STPM

VII. Summary of Pre-1948, Pre-STPM Era, Pre-Halstead,
Role and Status of Tropical and Preventive Medicine



I. The Colonial Roots of
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
It is quiet possible to have a contemporary understanding of tropical and/ or preventive as terms that are applied to a field of medicine without really understanding the origin and definition of those terms from a historical perspective. The words tropical and preventive, when used as adjectives to describe fields of medicine that exist today, are defined in a much evolved and broadened manner as to somewhat loose the stricter definition of its origins.

It is perhaps a sad commentary that tropical medicine originated as an outgrowth and bi-product of our colonial history. Colonialism is defined as a nation extending its influence and sovereignty beyond its territorial boundaries for purposes of having control and possession of the region they conquer. These resources includes: inexpensive labor or slavery, markets, raw materials, manufactured products, or additional territory. Colonialism eventually evolved into imperialism which differs only in that the territory being conquered remains as an independent sovereign nation, even if in name only.

The very act of conquering and spreading colonialism brings with it a system and structure of cultural, political, and religious values that become the intervention and domination by the more powerful country over a weaker one. Colonialism brought with it a set of beliefs that were utilized to give legitimacy and even promote the goals of colonialism. Arguably the ugliest aspect of these beliefs was the superiority of the European white people as at the top of the animal kingdom and therefore should dominate in every way over the non-European indigenous people of the world. This includes the domination of European religious beliefs and medical practices.

Colonialism is something that is not limited to any race of people or any region of the world and extends through the antiquity of time. But the roots of tropical and preventive medicine was created out of that colonialism that was part of the European Colonialist efforts starting with the Spanish Inquisition and extended into the world domination of the British Empire. As European colonialism spread through the world and especially the tropical regions of South America, Asia, Africa, India, and the South Pacific, the invading forces were met with new medical challenges that were considerably different than the cooler climates from which they came.

The initial invading forces of colonialism are generally composed of military armies that take control by force and violence. But they are soon joined by a range of other people that includes: back up military personnel, colonial administrators, explorers, settlers, businessmen, and Christian missionaries. These newcomers were generally unprepared for a new set of diseases, that were both prevalent and well adapted to warm, humid, tropical regions. It was imperative for all of the newcomers, invading, and conquering intruders, to address the “tropical diseases” that they were encountering with their lack of immunity, and lack of western medical knowledge or experience.

It would be wonderful to state that the study of tropical medicine was motivated out of an altruistic concern for the indigenous peoples whose land was being invaded, but sadly that is not the case. The primary motivation was for the well being of the new inhabitants whose immune systems were ill prepared for the challenges and consequences of tropical diseases. To the extent that the indigenous peoples were able to benefit from the breakthroughs in the treatment of tropical diseases was limited to the colonialist benefit of helping protect their human resources and maximize their profits from their labor resources, be it exploited workers or slavery.


II. Sir Doctor Patrick Manson
- Father of Tropical Medicine
The person who is credited with being “The Father of Tropical Medicine” was a Scottish Doctor named Patrick Manson (1844–1922), who worked in relative obscurity in the small village of Amoy, South China. Working with the most humble medical resources he uncovered the remarkable mystery of filariasis. Filarial disease, which causes the disfiguring elephantiasis, was highly prevalent in that region of China.

Doctor Manson initiated a new era of thinking that winged arthropods (flying insects) may be associated with the spread of disease in man. Manson was instrumental in making several original discoveries in parasitology and helminthology. His pioneering efforts led to the establishment of a new discipline in medicine, coined “tropical medicine” which is the only field of medicine that is named after a region of the world. In 1899, Doctor played a key role in establishing tropical medicine as a formal structured discipline with the founding of the London School of Tropical Medicine.

So the role and definition of tropical medicine that was birthed in colonialism and was “fathered” by Doctor Patrick Manson was about understanding the diseases and the transmission of those diseases in the tropical regions being conquered by the colonial powers.


III. The Role and Purpose of
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
An appropriate summary of the pre-World War II model and definition of tropical medicine is found in a book on the subject by John Farley, entitled: “Bilharzias - A History of Imperial Tropical Medicine”. In that publication, Farley writes:

“The basic goal of tropical medicine was to render the tropical world fit for white habitation and white investment. Its practitioners were member of colonial services, armies of occupation and mining and fruit companies. What, if anything, should be done about the health of the native inhabitants was determined by the policies of these Western agencies without reference to the needs of the indigenous communities. Not surprisingly their health needs became a priority only when their diseases were felt to threaten the health or profits of the white man, or when imperial policies demanded that the health needs of the indigenous populations be addressed. In addition, because of Christian duty and the white man’s burden always included medical and sanitary work, medical missionaries were also an important part of the picture…”

With the WWII, the American military was drawn into the South Pacific regions after the bombing of Peal Harbor by the Japanese. One result of this was that the U.S. military developed an interest in tropical medicine and started putting resources into the development of the emerging field of medicine. By now, colonialism had been replaced by imperialism but what did not change was the scope and definition of tropical medicine. In John Farley’s work on the subject, he describes the post WWII evolution of tropical medicine as follows:

“….that tropical medicine after World War II was also imperialistic in the sense that health policies continued to be imposed by the outside agencies, whether they were the declining imperial powers or the increasingly influential professional classes and international organizations. Tropical medicine, as before, continued to be imported, technical, and scientific; and even when, as in the 1940’s a more socially oriented approach briefly appeared, it was only because Western medicine was at that time flirting with so-called social medicine. There was, however, in this postwar era a rising concern with what were perceived to be the health problems of the tropical or Third World communities, but both the nature of these problems and the solutions to them continued to be imposed and Western. Even if control slowly passed into the hands of Third World personnel, no fundamental changes took place, for they had been trained in Western ideas and shared the professional goals and beliefs of their Western Colleagues.”

“I believe that a fundamental shift away from this imperial-styled medicine began to take place only in the 1980’s. In 1979, the WHO finally endorsed the idea that all people have the right to participate in their own health care planning and implementation, to dictate priorities, and to utilize methods that they can use and afford. Community participations has become the new creed, and minimally trained health workers are becoming the major agents of this new primary health care delivery system.”


IV. Early Definition for the Term
“Preventive Medicine”
Given all of the aforementioned, the early references to the term preventive medicine was strictly limited to the “prevention” of these tropical diseases through vector control, early drug intervention in the disease process, and risk management. The study of tropical medicine was the study of those tropical diseases that were prevalent in the warmer, more humid, tropical regions.

The goal of the study of tropical medicine was to “prevent” the spread of those diseases by breaking the cycle by which vectors such as mosquitoes could spread those diseases. Therefore, using malaria as an example, the term “prevention” would be defined in the historical context of tropical medicine as the eradication of mosquitoes, protection from contact with mosquitoes, the use of prophylactic drugs, or the early detection and treatment of the disease.

The term “prevention” as applied to tropical medicine, had little in common to how the term is generally used and understood today. Prevention in those days had nothing to do with super nutrition, immune enhancement, vitamin supplementation, herbal medicine, exercise, a vegetarian diet, or any of these other lifestyle changes that have come to define the term “prevention“ of the modern era.

Nor did it have any thing in common with the current use of the word prevention as applied to the innovative development of health modalities such as Chelation Therapy, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, DMSO, or any of the other therapies now in use for the “prevention” of chronic and generative diseases such as: heart attacks, stoke, senility, or even cancer. In this sense prevention also means “age reversal” and “life extension”, where immune enhancement and optimal health are the primary goals. These later criteria for prevention of optimum health are also known as holistic, wholistic medicine, and natural medicine, which has nothing to do with the word preventive in the traditional practice of tropical medicine.


V. The Role and Contribution of the
Adventist Health Message
Ellen White is well known for the health message that is the trademark of the Adventist church today. She in turn was heavily influence about health issues by her close friend and associate, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., who influenced the worldwide development and philosophy of Seventh-day Adventist medicine more than did anyone except Mrs. White. Kellogg relied on the fundamental principals outlined in White's books and then developed that message into a lifelong study and research into optimum health. Chapter 14 of Schaefer's book Legacy, is about the amazing story of Kellogg, who founded the Battle Creek Sanitarium and invented the Kellogg cereal.

Kellogg was a physician, surgeon, that with nearly 50 books was a prolific writer and delivered over 5,000 lectures. He was a student of Pasteur's work on microbiology and relied on it as the basis to advocate for a vegetarian diet. But his approach to optimum health went way beyond simply avoiding meat. It was a natural healthy lifestyle which he termed "Biologic living" which also required "total abstinence from alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, and animal flesh. It included proper diet, adequate rest and exercise, fresh air, healthful dress, and (in case of illness) simple, natural remedies."

This is the essence of the Adventist health message and is what has now become fashionable these days with the popularity of the trendy health spas. Sanitarium is a term that in those days was simply used to define a hospital that embraced those natural health "spa" like principals, including massage, sauna, herbs, and hot tubs. These principals are not only the basis on which the church was founded, it was the message they believed they were to spread to the rest of their world in their "evangelistic" efforts; thus the name "College of Medical Evangelist."

So the Adventist message deserves credit for having a background orientation of healthy lifestyle that are included in much of current trends in holistic (wholistic) health, natural medicine, and even preventive medicine as it is now defined. Seventh Day Adventist integrated that message into their religion. Adventist were founded with the beliefs of Kellogg and White that were demonstrated in the sanitarium/hospitals that they created based upon Ellen White’s visions.

So it is fair to say that Adventist have from the start, become a religion that: 1 advocates a progressive healthy lifestyle, 2. they use those health principals to administer to the “physical and spiritual health” of people around the world, and 3. believe in training doctors and nurses to become “medical evangelist” to the world. And into the world they went, just as fast as they could train them, they went out to the “mission fields” and commenced to setting up schools, churches, clinics, and hospitals.

In this sense, Seventh Day Adventist were part of the history of the spread of Christianity, that began with the Christian Crusades and continued through the entire colonial era, eventually evolving into what is now the modern era of Christian missionaries. This isn’t a statement about the qualitative value of the effect of the spread of Christianity as much as it is to document the role of Christianity in the development of tropical medicine.


VI. Halstead’s Background, Influence, and
Focus on Tropical and Preventive Medicine
prior to STPM
Doctor Halstead started taking an obsessed, even unexplainable interest in travel, the South Pacific, and Tropical fish beginning at as early as age 5. Starting in 1935 at age 15, Halstead started studying at the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences under his greatest influence and mentor, Howard Walton Clark.

Clark taught him about all of the natural sciences but most notably, ichthyology (fish), scientific methodology, scientific identification, and an extensive emphasis on parasitology. The history of tropical medicine is always associated and dependent upon the field of parasitology with all of the vectors that spread the tropical diseases.

After the death of Clark in 1941, the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences, hired Dr. Wilbert McCloud Chapman, to assume the duties of Clark. By then the War was well under way and everyone was doing their part including the Academy. Under Chapman, Halstead learned the politics of science as Chapman was constantly in touch with members of Congress and our military. Later Chapman had a role in expanding the use of tropical medicine when he convinced the Armed Forces to supply our troops with fresh fish to eat. The idea caught on with our War Department and Chapman was off to the Asia-Pacific Theatre.

Halstead continued his understudy work at Golden Gate Academy while he received an Associates of Arts degree in biology at San Francisco City College, his B.A. Degree in zoology at U.C. Berkeley, and student teaching at Pacific Union College. While still at U.C. Berkeley, Halstead was encouraged to join the Army Specialized Training Program which structured his education with the intent of continuing on to medicine.

While at medical school at Loma Linda, he remained Private First Class Halstead and was required to wear his uniform at school. Also while attending medical school, Halstead would find any opportunity to go spend time at Golden Gate Academy of Sciences.

Drawing on his background at the Academy, he excelled at parasitology and tropical medicine. During his spare time, he would go out and collect parasitology specimens from cows, pigs, chickens, and anywhere else he could find, earning the school the best collection of it’s kind at any learning institution around. He was an assistant instructor of parasitology and tropical medicine by his sophomore year and was the instructor immediately upon completion of his senior year.

In July of 1947, when it was time to select an internship, Halstead decided to intern at the Marine Hospital of the U.S. Public Health Service in San Francisco, California, where he became a Lieutenant Junior grade in the Public Health Service.

Upon completion of his internship, Halstead returned to Loma Linda to work with Dr. Mozar in developing the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine.


VII. Summary of Pre-1948, Pre-STPM Era,
Pre-Halstead, Role and Status of
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
In order to put into context, the relative value of the contribution of Doctor Halstead’s work, it is important to examine the field of tropical medicine and even the term “preventive medicine” at the time that he launched his career at the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine at Loma Linda, in 1948.

By 1948, WWII had just ended and the U.S. military along with the allied forces, was still fresh with the experiences of waging combat in tropical regions ranging through the Asia-Pacific Theatre, China, the Mediterranean, the African Continent, and the Middle East. The military had encountered the limits and challenges of western medicine on tropical diseases which helped put some much needed attention on the problem.

It can be argued that the military had helped expand the role of tropical medicine, under the leadership of Dr. Chapman of the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences, when Chapman succeeded in developing local sea food as a dietary source to feed the troops. This event opened the door to the value and need for Doctor Halstead’s work on Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals that followed.

With that single exception, the definition and role of tropical medicine had not changed from its inception. That is to say that tropical medicine was still limited to dealing with the existence of tropical diseases primarily for the survivability of the newcomer foreigners in those tropical regions. Prevention had none of the holistic, wholistic, or natural medicine connotations that it has today.

To put into context Doctor Halstead’s contribution to Loma Linda University, it is important to examine where the Adventist church and the school at Loma Linda were focused and where they were either totally inexperienced and/or totally resistant. In a nutshell, Loma Linda and the Adventist church had adopted a solid health message but had demonstrated little if any interest in research into the principals supporting that health message or expanding the development of new health modalities. Consequently, they had no background or experience in grant acquisition from either the government or the private sector.

So for Loma Linda University, Doctor Halstead is the father of research and the father of grant acquisition. For the field of tropical medicine, Doctor Halstead was the first to expand its role into research into poisonous and venomous marine animals as a source for new drugs from the sea. He is also the first to reverse the model of imposing western medicine onto indigenous native people. Instead, Doctor Halstead gave credence and respect for the hundreds, if not thousands of years of traditional tribal medicine, as a worthy field of investigation for the possibility of scientific validation of herbal/botanical compounds for new drug discoveries.

In the larger world of medical science, Doctor Halstead is the pioneer and the father of the field of bio-toxicology. Largely self taught on the subject, he became the leading world authority on Bio-toxicology and devoted his life to discovering the secrets of natural occurring compounds on land and the sea that could advance the science of human health.

Even more impressive is the career that began with the formation of the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine and pioneered these scientific research fields of endeavors, evolved into the founding of World Life Research Institute where Doctor Halstead researched and pioneered, new health modalities in the emerging field of Alternative Medicine.

In this context of 1948 tropical and preventive medicine, and in this context of 1948 Loma Linda University (CME), and in this context of Bruce Halstead, fresh out of thirteen years as an understudy at the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences and having just graduated President of his medical class; the birth of The School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine is no small incident but was a major milestone, a new beginning, and a turning point for Loma Linda, Bruce Halstead, and the medical and scientific research that followed.

(end)

The STPM Story

The Complete Story of
the Creation and History of the
School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Loma Linda University
1948 to 1958

[Please Note - This post is a work in progress and under construction. It is the story of the STPM from the perspective of the life of it's co-founder, research director, Doctor Bruce W. Halstead and relies on his memoirs and the stated history of LLU from their website. This post will be updated with input from Ray Ryckman and any other participants with the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine. If you have any pictures, stories, or other information that you can contribute, it would be greatly appreciated!]

The Genesis of
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Prior to STPM - A Halstead Perspective

The History of Tropical Medicine, the meaning of “Preventive”, the Adventist contribution and the Bruce W. Halstead Perspective.
To Read This Entire Chapter - CLICK HERE

Table of Contents

I. The Colonial Roots of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

II. Sir Doctor Patrick Manson - Father of Tropical Medicine
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

III. The Role and Purpose of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

IV. Early Definition for the Term “Preventive Medicine”
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

V. The Adventist Health Message Contribution
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

VI. Halstead’s Background, Influence, and Focus on
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Prior to STPM
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

VII. Summary of Pre-1948, Pre-STPM Era, Pre-Halstead,
Role and Status of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

VII. Summary of Pre-1948, Pre-STPM Era, Pre-Halstead,
Role and Status of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

In order to put into context, the relative value of the contribution of Doctor Halstead’s work, it is important to examine the field of tropical medicine and even the term “preventive medicine” at the time that he launched his career at the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine at Loma Linda, in 1948.

By 1948, WWII had just ended and the U.S. military along with the allied forces, was still fresh with the experiences of waging combat in tropical regions ranging through the Asia-Pacific Theatre, China, the Mediterranean, the African Continent, and the Middle East. The military had encountered the limits and challenges of western medicine on tropical diseases which helped put some much needed attention on the problem.

It can be argued that the military had helped expand the role of tropical medicine, under the leadership of Dr. Chapman of the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences, when Chapman succeeded in developing local sea food as a dietary source to feed the troops. This event opened the door to the value and need for Doctor Halstead’s work on Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals that followed. With that single exception, the definition and role of tropical medicine had not changed from its inception. That is to say that tropical medicine was still limited to dealing with the existence of tropical diseases primarily for the survivability of the newcomer foreigners in those tropical regions. Prevention had none of the holistic, wholistic, or natural medicine connotations that it has today.

To put into context Doctor Halstead’s contribution to Loma Linda University, it is important to examine where the Adventist church and the school at Loma Linda were focused and where they were either totally inexperienced and/or totally resistant. In a nutshell, Loma Linda and the Adventist church had adopted a solid health message but had demonstrated little if any interest in research into the principals supporting that health message or expanding the development of new health modalities. Consequently, they had no background or experience in grant acquisition from either the government or the private sector.

So for Loma Linda University, Doctor Halstead is the father or pioneer of both research and grant acquisition.

For the field of tropical medicine, Doctor Halstead was the first to expand its role into research into poisonous and venomous marine animals as a source for new drugs from the sea.

He is also the first to reverse the model of imposing western medicine onto indigenous native people. Instead, Doctor Halstead gave credence and respect for the hundreds, if not thousands of years of traditional tribal medicine, as a worthy field of investigation for the possibility of scientific validation of herbal/botanical compounds for new drug discoveries.

In the larger world of medical science, Doctor Halstead is the pioneer and the father of the field of bio-toxicology. Largely self taught on the subject, he became the leading world authority on Bio-toxicology and devoted his life to discovering the secrets of natural occurring compounds on land and the sea that could advance the science of human health.

Even more impressive is the career that began with the formation of the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine and pioneered these scientific research fields of endeavors, evolved into the founding of World Life Research Institute where Doctor Halstead researched and pioneered, new health modalities in the emerging field of Alternative Medicine.

In this context of 1948 tropical and preventive medicine, in this context of 1948 Loma Linda University (CME), in this context of Bruce Halstead, fresh out of thirteen years as an understudy at the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences and having just graduated President of his medical class; the birth of The School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine is no small incident but was a major milestone, a new beginning, and a turning point for Loma Linda, Bruce Halstead, and the medical and scientific research that followed.

Bruce W. Halstead, M.D. as he looked in 1948
Graduation from Medical School and founding
The School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

To Contribute To This Post or questions about this site please contact:

WorldLifeResearch@gmail.com

(Under Construction)

School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine - History

School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine - History

From LLU website

http://www.llu.edu/centennial/1940.html

Centennial timeline: 1940s 1948 - April 1 - School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine opens.



http://www.llu.edu/news/scope/scope_story.php?id=478&date=

The emergence of research: Historical insights from the emergence of research at Loma Linda University By Barry L. Taylor, PhD

The emergence of research: Historical insights from the emergence of research at Loma Linda University
By Barry L. Taylor, PhD

The train station at the base of “The Hill Beautiful” was the first view of Loma Linda for many passengers that got off there.

After the Santa Fe railroad reached Los Angeles in 1887, many new settlers from the East and Midwest came in search of a better lifestyle, health, and riches. A group of businessmen and physicians established a health resort on the hill at Loma Linda with the goal that it would be one of the finest health resorts among the many developing in Southern California.¹

The resort struggled and then failed and was offered for sale at a discounted price of $110,000. Ellen G. White, a founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, had seen in a dream a very attractive property on a hill that she envisioned as a health center for the Adventist Church. She was in touch with a minister, John A. Burden, and asked him to look out for such a property in Southern California. It was Pastor Burden who found the Loma Linda property that was for sale, and later Ellen G. White said that this was the property she had seen in her dream.

When the price of the 76-acre Loma Linda property dropped to $40,000, Pastor Burden received conflicting advice. Without spending time to consult Church leaders, Ellen G. White advised, “Secure the property by all means, so that it can be held and then obtain all the money you can and make sufficient payments to hold the place. This is the very property we ought to have. Do not delay; for it is just what is needed. … We will do our utmost to help you raise the money.” However, Church leaders meeting in Washington, D.C., sent Pastor Burden a wire saying, “Developments here warrant advising do not make deposit on sanitarium.”¹

Pastor Burden accepted the advice of Ellen G. White and personally borrowed $1,000 for the deposit that secured the property, knowing that $4,000 was due to be paid one month later, and a

Loma Linda’s first nursing class admires the newly-arrived Richard Edward Abbott.

nother $5,000 after two months. No one knew where that money would come from; but when the payments came due, the Church received unexpected donations that were just sufficient for the payments. Clearly God was leading.

The pre-research era: 1905–1922

To understand the history of research at Loma Linda University you must recognize this historical context. The Adventist Church sought to establish a major health center and a heath-related educational institution without the necessary resources. They were inspired by faith that God was leading, but it was a constant struggle and the survival of the institution was often in doubt. On top of that, the Seventh-day Adventist denomination was organized only 40 years before purchasing the Loma Linda property. The Church was on fire with a mission to save the world—a mission that included a strong emphasis on training medical missionaries to serve the evangelistic goals of the Church. Research was not considered relevant to this. The faculty had little background in traditional academic research that was characteristic of major historic universities.

The School of Nursing was the first educational program, followed in 1909 by a charter from the state of California for the College of Medical Evangelists. This established a school of medicine, but no research. The new medical school received a class C rating from the American Medical Association accrediting body in 1915, which made the students’ diplomas of little value. This was upgraded to a class B rating in 1917, still with heavy criticism of the qualifications of the faculty.^1,3

The era of freedom to do research: 1922–1951

I

Elder John A. Burden was one of the few that believed, as Ellen White did, that Loma Linda would one day become a successful educational institution.

n this research era, medical missionary training was still the main activity, but accrediting agencies began to mandate that the fledgling medical school make plans to include research as a component of the CME academic program. As a result, individual faculty members who were passionate about research, and able to do it with minimal resources, were given the freedom to add research to their busy schedules. Some faculty members made notable research contributions.

Newton G. Evans, MD, president of the College of Medical Evangelists from 1914 to 1927, was a graduate of Cornell University School of Medicine, and he and others recognized the importance of sending Adventist young people for training in major universities. As the quality of the faculty improved, CME received the much desired class A rating in 1922. But in the letter from the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals, research was identified as an area for improvement. “You are undoubtedly already fully familiar with the fact that improvements can be made with great advantage in the following particulars: … the making of adequate provision whereby medical research can be carried on.”

Between 1930 and 1940, pressure to improve research continued to come from accreditation requirements. Fred Zapffe, MD, of the American Medical Colleges criticized CME for the lack of credible research programs: “It is the function of every medical school to teach and to do research, and I may add, to care for the sick in its hospitals. A teacher who has not been bitten by the research bug is not a real teacher. He merely passes on what he has read, which is not real education at all. Such teaching is being discouraged and even condemned more and more.”

Pressure also came from a group of alumni w

Newton G. Evans, MD, president of College of Medical Evangelists from 1914–1927, was also known for his
research in pathology.

ho formed the Harveian society to advocate for reform at CME. Percy T. Magan, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, summarized attitudes to research in a letter to A.G. Daniells, a church leader, by stating, “I have never felt that I could conscientiously and fairly, in view of the interest of the school, take a position that we would do no research work, but in a way I have looked upon this much the same … as I have looked upon accrediting with these worldly organizations. I have felt that it would undoubtedly be necessary to try to do a little along this line in order to keep the peace and keep our school from getting into trouble with the men who are at the helm of things medical in the United States. Nevertheless, in my soul I have had very little regard and fondness for this thing.”

With research tolerated by most and encouraged by a few, some individual faculty achieved distinction in their research during the 1940s and 1950s. They were mostly on the Los Angeles campus where students received clinical training for the MD degree. An additional boost to research was the access of CME clinical faculty to the broader world of medicine at the Los Angeles County Hospital, where they had contact with physicians from other medical schools.

Philip J. Vogel, MD, a neurosurgeon, developed a technique to sever the connections between the cerebral hemispheres to aid patients with intractable seizures. By following the patients, Dr. Vogel’s collaborator Joseph Bogen, MD, and Roger Sperry, PhD, at the California Institute of Technology, began human right-and-left-brain research.

Cyril B. Courville, MD, a prominent neuropathologist and textbook author at CME, was nationally recognized for his research on concussions and head injury. This research is still

Roger W. Barnes, MD, a urologist, pioneered endoscopic surgery and published regularly, including a well-used textbook.

cited today. His collection of weapons associated with head injury is now housed in the Courville museum in the department of pathology.

Roger W. Barnes, MD, a urologist, pioneered endoscopic surgery and published regularly, including a well-used textbook. Dr. Barnes never retired and did not take sick leave for more than 55 years. Of the more than 200 published scientific articles, 25 were submitted after the age of 75.

H. James Hara, MD, an ENT physician, pioneered bronchoscopy. He was of Japanese-American decent and was confined during World War II.

Ellsworth E. Wareham, MD, pioneered the use of the heart-lung machine in Southern California and, with C. Joan Coggin, MD, MPH, began the Loma Linda University Overseas Heart Surgery Team.

Other research physicians included Alonzo J. Neufeld, MD, in orthopaedic surgery, and Milton G. Crane, MD, and John J. Harris, MD, in the endocrinology of hypertension. Vernon L. Nickel, MD, pioneered orthopaedic rehabilitation medicine at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital. Newton G. Evans, MD, president of CME from 1914–1927, later established a good reputation for his pathology research. Dr. Neufeld established the CME Alumni Research Foundation, in part, from royalties from the Neufeld nail used to pin hips.

Era of externally mandated research: 1952–1961

In this era, medical missionary training was still the main activity, but the patience of the accrediting bodies ran out and CME was unexpectedly placed under a mandate to demonstrate administrative support for research. The leadership team at CME responded positively and actively recruited faculty with research training.

At the dawn of the 1950s the Loma Linda campus of CME was known as “the farm.” There was little researc

C. Joan Coggin, MD, MPH, and Ellsworth E. Wareham, MD (right), began the Loma Linda University Overseas Heart Surgery Team. Here, they are congratulated by U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.

h on this campus. Raymond A. Mortensen, PhD, persevered on metabolic studies in animals. Raymond E. Ryckman, PhD, remembers when he, Bruce W. Halstead, MD, and Harold N. Mozar, MD, approached administrators on the topic of research. After their discussion, it was clear that research was not a priority.⁴

Two important events in Loma Linda’s research history would soon change that.

The first event was the formation of a School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine (STPM) in the old South Laboratory. After World War II, there was a great deal of interest in tropical medicine, and it was expected that U.S. medical schools would quickly develop expertise in this area. Dr. Mozar had directed an Army School of Topical Medicine in New Guinea, and Walter E. Macpherson, MD, then-dean of the School of Medicine, invited him to develop a School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine at CME. An upstart medical student, Bruce W. Halstead, was to be the associate director, and to continue what became his lifelong study of poisonous fish. Research and scholarly publications were prominent in the mission of the new school.²

Dr. Halstead became an internationally recognized expert in marine toxicology and his three-volume treatise on poison-ous and venomous marine animals is still the definitive work in this field today. The STPM hired well and built a strong research team. Dr. Ryckman, a medical entomologist trained at University of California, Berkeley, joined the team and obtained contracts with the Army to study various vectors. He became the foremost authority on Triatoma, the “kissing bug” that is the vector for Chagas disease. This work is still highly important to public health in Central and South America, and as a result, the Communicable Dise

Raymond E. Ryckman, PhD (left), became the foremost authority on Triatoma. This work is still highly important to public health in Central and South America.

ase Center of the United States Public Health Service republished Dr. Ryckman’s dissertation and an annotated bibliography of 23,000 references in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English only a few years ago. This research was supported in part by funding from the World Health Organization.

Edward D. Wagner, PhD, a medical parasitologist, was also hired and studied snails and their role in Schistosomiasis. George A. Nelson, PhD, by improving the protocol of a Japanese scientist, was the first person to crystallize large amounts of tetrodotoxin, thereby bringing classified research to Loma Linda. Dr. Nelson supplied the crystals to Robert Woodward, PhD, a Harvard chemist, who determined tetrodotoxin’s structure, and later received the Nobel Prize in 1965.

U.D. Register, PhD, in biochemistry, was the first to prove scientifically the nutritional adequacy of the vegetarian diet, leading the American Dietetic Association to stop listing the vegetarian diet as nutritionally deficient in amino acids.

The STPM made two more important contributions. It hired Milton Murray as a public relations officer and fundraiser, launching his illustrious career. They also were the first researchers at Loma Linda to obtain National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, although the formal peer review process that we associate with NIH was not yet in place. Mervyn G. Hardinge, MD, PhD, DrPH, appears to have been the first recipient of an NIH award under the peer review process. The STPM also developed productive links to naval and army research funding offices.

The second event that stimulated research on the Loma Linda campus was another unfavorable accreditation report in 1952. The Council on Medical Education was dissatisfied with the attempts to upgrade the teaching of anat

U.D. Register, PhD, led the American Dietetic Association to stop listing vegetarian diets as nutritionally deficient in amino acids.

omy, physiology, and pharmacology, and it mandated that CME look outside the Adventist Church and hire experienced chairs for these departments. As a result, CME hired Otto F. Kampmeier, MD, PhD, in anatomy; Charles M. Gruber, MD, PhD, in pharmacology; and J. Earl Thomas, MD, in physiology. Dr. Thomas later joined the Adventist Church. These new chairs immediately improved the teaching of basic sciences and also worked hard to foster research. They received strong support from Harold Shryock, MD, who embraced research after the 1952 accreditation report.

The new chairs worked cooperatively with CME to recruit well-trained Adventist basic scientists and then mentored them in both research and teaching. Drs. Kampmeier and Gruber were instrumental in starting the first PhD program. Early well-known recruits included Dr. Hardinge, who had received a DrPH at Harvard for his research on vegetarian nutrition, and was then sent to get a PhD in pharmacology at Stanford. He subsequently took over as chair of pharmacology, where he led out in securing external research grant funding.

Later he founded the School of Public Health with a strong emphasis on research. The growing research emphasis in the basic sciences in the 1950s and 1960s attracted many new faculty with research interests, including Ian M. Fraser, PhD, and Leonard R. Bullas, PhD (both from Australia); R. Bruce Wilcox, PhD; Allen Strother, PhD; Joe Willey, PhD; and Brian S. Bull, MD.

To Read full Story on the LLU website - CLICK HERE

STPM Participants - Dr. Frank Lemon

From LLU Website
http://www.llu.edu/news/today/may7/sph.htm

Dr. Hart (right) reads a plaque
honoring Frank Lemon, MD,
as recipient of the
School of Public Health's
Distinguished Service Award for 1998

Public health names alumnus of the year, service award recipients

During the annual recognition banquet, held on Thursday evening, March 12, the School of Public Health announced this year's recipients of the School's Alumnus of the Year and Distinguished Service Awards.

Frank R. Lemon, MD, was born in San Bernardino. In June of 1950, he graduated from the College of Medical Evangelists (CME)--now Loma Linda University--and interned at the United States Marine Hospital, San Francisco, as an officer in the United States Public Health Service, followed by a residency at the Contra Costa County Hospital located in Martinez.

During the latter part of 1951, Dr. Lemon moved his family to Wyoming and began private practice in the rural town of Greybull. Two years later, after successfully establishing a busy practice in Greybull, Dr. Lemon answered a call to join the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine at CME.

He was sent to Mexico City in order to gain experience in public health and tropical medicine. During his year there, he helped establish a field experience program for CME medical students. Following his experience in Mexico, he attended Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, where he received his MPH degree.

In-mid 1955, Dr. Lemon returned to Loma Linda where he became assistant professor in the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine. Here he developed both general health and parasitic studies among farm workers in the Imperial Valley and Native American inhabitants of the Navajo nation.

He also developed an epidemiological study titled "Causes of Death Among Seventh-day Adventists," which became known as the Adventist Mortality Study. Soon after, he was named chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine in the University's School of Medicine. Dr. Lemon received a grant which allowed him to set up a program to send medical students to various sites in North, South, and Central America in order to gain public health and mission experience. This particular program was an important part of his belief that CME was established to train "medical evangelists" to respond to the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world.

To Read the Entire Article on the LLU website - CLICK HER

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LLU School of Public Health - History

This is from Loma Linda University, School of Public Health website and is what they list as their history.

The School was begun in 1948 with the organization of the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, the purpose of which was to provide a base for research and teaching. After its reorganization in 1961, the Division of Public Health and Tropical Medicine began to offer master's degree programs through the Graduate School. Establishment of the School of Public Health was authorized in 1964, and plans were made for faculty and facilities to meet the requirements of the Committee on Professional Education of the American Public Health Association.

In 1967, when the School of Public Health officially opened, the School of Nutrition and Dietetics (which had been organized in 1922 as the School of Dietetics) became a department of the School of Public Health. The name of the School was changed to School of Health in October 1970. Because the meaning of the term "public health" has gradually broadened to emphasize lifestyle-consistent with the goals of the School-the original name, School of Public Health, was readopted in August 1987.

The Center for Health Promotion, the Department of Preventive Medicine, and the Preventive Medicine Practice Group were merged into the School of Public Health in 1990. This resulted in expanded faculty and resources. The School of Public Health also serves as the Department of Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine.

To visit the original source on LLU website - CLICK HERE

LLU Celebrates 40th Anniversary and STPM

Thursday March 26, 2007

School of Public Health banquet celebrates School’s 40th anniversary

In conjunction with its annual Healthy People conference, the School of Public Health hosted a 40th anniversary banquet March 7 in celebration of the School’s four decades.

About 185 people attended the banquet, including students, faculty, Healthy People attendees, some alumni, and some of the School’s former deans.

Donn Gaede, DrPH, assistant professor, department of global health, hosted the evening. The speaker was Joan Coggin, MD, MPH, retired vice president for global outreach of Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center and professor in the School of Medicine.

In addition, a string quartet and the Loma Linda Academy group Pro Musica group presented music for the evening.

Retired faculty member P. William Dysinger, MD, MPH, was in attendance at the event. He is an emeritus associate dean of the School. Dr. Dysinger’s work with the School of Public Health goes back to the days when it was known as the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine.

“It’s nice to see something that you helped start continue on,” Dr. Dysinger says.

Also in attendance was one of the first public health students, Carolyn Stuyvesant, who lives in Yucaipa. She studied tropical public health, receiving a master of science degree in 1967 (her degree was from the Graduate School due to the timing of the accreditation process for the new School of Public Health).

The School of Public Health was officially started in 1967, with Mervyn G. Hardinge, MD, DrPH, as dean. It was the first private school of public health west of the Mississippi River. The School had been under development for three years, since the Board authorized its creation in 1964.

The School united three entities into one by consolidating the School of Nutrition and Dietetics, the School of Medicine’s department of preventive medicine, and the division of public health. The division of public health had been in existence since 1961; prior to that, it was called the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, formed in the late 1940s.

The School of Public Health received full accreditation from the American Public Health Association in June 1967. In the fall of 1967, the Association of Schools of Public Health voted to accept the new LLU School of Public Health as a full member.

From the beginning, the faculty of the LLU School of Public Health have been involved in important activities. For example, in 1969, U.D. Register, PhD, chair of the nutrition department, participated in the first White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health.

To Read the full story on the LLU website - CLICK HERE
http://www.llu.edu/news/today/today_story.php?id=1142

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Loma Linda Pays Tribute - Ray Ryckman and School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

Loma Linda University Pays Tribute

Ray Ryckman
and
School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine


Raymond E. Ryckman, PhD (left),
Close friend and research associate
of Dr. Bruce W. Halstead and became
the foremost authority on Triatoma,
conducting research at the STPM

Ray Ryckman got some long over due recognition from an institution that he has served most all of his professional life. He is the only person left that was deeply involved with the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine. As such he is the one person who still knows most of the history and politics involved with STPM, Bruce W. Halstead, and Loma Linda University back when it was still called the College of Medical Evangelist.

STPM was founded by Dr.s Mozar and Halstead back in 1948. Dr. Halstead left in 1958 and started the World Life Research Institute. Halstead and Ryckman have long been friends. Ray was in Bruce and Joy's wedding. It was Bruce that advised Ray to go get an undergraduate degree from U. C. Berkeley in zoology, just like he had done.

When the original STPM building was torn down, Ryckman was able to salvage some of the windows and the original sign. He used the windows to build a greenhouse and he put the sign over his front porch. For Ray Ryckman, being part of the STPM and the history involved, is something that he feels proud to be a part of as he was. Under STPM, Doctor Halstead was singlehandedly the first person to ever conduct research at Loma Linda and in doing so he got the first grants and pioneered the grant funding of research at Loma Linda as well.





School of Public Health honors students at awards banquet



The School of Public Health gave out its diplomas on June 10, but the evening before, the School also gave out multiple awards to students, faculty, alumni, and staff at the annual awards banquet.

David Dyjack, DrPH, CIH (right), honors
Raymond Ryckman, PhD, and Carolyn Stuyvesant, MS.

The School paid tribute to the past, as well. An old sign reading “School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine” was put on display. This organization at LLU was a forerunner to the current School of Public Health, which was established in 1967 and is celebrating 40 years of existence this year. The sign was borrowed from Raymond Ryckman, PhD, emeritus professor of microbiology, School of Medicine, who was also involved in the early days of public health at LLU.

Dr. Ryckman and Carolyn Stuyvesant, MS, an early public health student, were recognized by David Dyjack, DrPH, CIH, School of Public Health dean.

Dr. Dyjack also gave special recognition to Susanne Montgomery, PhD, MPH, and Christine Neish, PhD, for their hard work and dedicated service to the School. Dr. Montgomery has worked at the School for about 12 years, and she served for the past two years as the School’s associate dean for academic affairs. She recently stepped down from this administrative post in order to focus on research, and she is now director of the School’s Center for Health Research.

Dr. Neish has worked in the School of Public Health since 1973. While she still holds a secondary appointment in the SPH, as of summer 2006 her primary appointment is now in the LLU School of Nursing.

To Read Full Story on LLU website - CLICK HERE

Account of BWH Legal Case by the Winds Publication

FDA AND STATE AUTHORITIES WAR AGAINST NATURAL REMEDIES

A decade's-long dispute between a highly respected physician/scientist and the State of California ended with the elderly doctor, Bruce Halstead, on criminal probation and stripped of his license to practice medicine.

In light of this and other recent actions taken by state governmental authorities in cooperation with such U. S. institutions as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), the government appears to be engaged in a concerted war against a domain of the healing arts known as alternative medicine. This war, ostensibly for the protection of American citizens from unscrupulous "quacks," has apparently moved into a new phase. The FDA's pursuit of medical "public enemies" is no longer restricted primarily to non-MD practitioners not trained at established medical schools--those the general public largely considers the unorthodox fringe of the medical world. These federal agencies are now engaging the force of the government's legal machinery in the prosecution of physicians practicing "conventional medicine"--those who have dared to recognize and even incorporate into their practices the efficacy of holistic natural remedies.

Dr. Halstead is a graduate of Loma Linda University, a medical school which, to those in the field of the human physiological sciences, ranks as one of the more prestigious schools of medicine and scientific research in the world.

The 77-year-old physician is currently on probation under the State of California, Los Angeles County, for his activities involving the prescribing of alternative medication, specifically for his cancer patients. Dr. Halstead has been suspended from any form of medical practice. "In fact," he told The WINDS, "I can't even talk to a patient about nutrition."

When his home and clinic in San Bernardino County were raided by the Los Angeles District Attorney, "I challenged their legal jurisdiction," Halstead informed The WINDS, "since I had never lived or worked in Los Angeles County, but that did not matter. I was a legal novice and had not yet learned that jurisdiction and venue were merely legal fantasies which have no meaning in actual fact for the alternative health physician." (Nor, apparently, does the constitutional doctrine of habeas corpus).

Dr. Halstead was charged with twenty-eight counts of conspiracy, grand theft and violations of the Health and Safety Code, along with twenty felony and misdemeanor counts.

"The prosecutor wanted me to go to prison for eight years," he told The WINDS, "but the court ultimately reduced the sentence to 32 months. I was offered, on at least ten different occasions, the 'opportunity' of plea bargaining for a crime which I did not commit," Halstead explained. "My reply was 'not until hell freezes over.'"

The assault upon alternative medicine "is not just against me," he said. "They're after everybody and everything" connected with the field.

THE QUALIFICATIONS

Dr. Halstead, acclaimed as a genius even among his peers, has authored hundreds of books and research publications. Among them are benchmark works such as Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals of the World which the U.S. Navy considers of such importance as to fund a project to put the entire three-volume tome on CD-ROM.

The WINDS obtained a copy of Dr. Halstead's Curriculum Vitae, the academician's equivalent of a resume´. The following qualifications belong to a man whom the government deems dangerous to his patients, incompetent to practice medicine and academically inadequate to determine what is harmful or beneficial to human physiology:

• Eleven years teaching on the medical faculty of Loma Linda University.
• Specializes in global preventive medicine, tropical diseases and biotoxicology.
• Assistant Director on the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.
• Assisted in developing a global preventive military medical program at the U.S. Naval Medical School, Bethesda, Maryland.
• Lectured on biotoxicology at the School of Aerospace Medicine, U.S. Air Force, San Antonio, Texas.
• Conducted Arctic expeditions for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and National Institutes of Health, studying poisonous and venomous marine animals, and potential drugs from the sea.
• Contributor to Dorland's Medical Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Ed.
• Engaged in marine scientific research with the Jacques Cousteau Society, traveling extensively with the Cousteaus for eighteen years.

Additionally, Dr. Halstead has been deeply involved in the study of the use of oriental herbal therapy on immune deficiency disorders.

If the foregoing portrayal of a physician/scientist depicts a man who is unqualified to recommend treatment to his patients, to whom would the government have its citizens resort?--to those whose abysmal record of success appears to condemn far more patients to death than life. With the aforementioned credentials ascribed to him, one could ask how any law enforcement agency, tasked with the medical oversight and welfare of its citizens, could be so zealous as to prosecute one such as Dr. Halstead and class him with the "snake oil" peddlers they sometimes encounter.

In 1959 Dr. Halstead founded the World Life Research Institute in Grand Terrace, California. It was his work with this organization that, years later, ran him afoul of the Food and Drug Administration when he attempted to incorporate his massive knowledge and experience into the treatment of cancer.

THE MOTIVE SURFACES

Perhaps something else Dr. Halstead revealed to The WINDS has played a part in the FDA's zeal to relegate him to the medical "scrap heap". "We have been monitoring the illicit regulatory activities of the FDA and the cancer establishment, " Halstead claims, "and are in constant contact with a network of organizations and attorneys dealing with their illegal health activities in this country which are steadily driving up our national health costs."

Is it not interesting how money keeps introducing itself into the mix? Halstead concurs making the ominous assertion that, "Cancer is the sacred cow of the medical industry. More people make money by treating cancer than there are victims dying from the disease."

After a 25-year effort into medical/biological research, "I was shocked," Dr. Halstead exclaimed, "to find upon my Rip Van Winkle return to clinical medicine that dangerous toxic drugs, all FDA approved, had proliferated to a frightening extent--over 1.54 billion prescriptions written in the U.S. per year.

"I found," Halstead continues, "that many of these drugs destroy your immune system and are carcinogenic. New and awesome medical technologies were also being spawned, mind-blowing in both their diagnostic capability and staggering costs to the consumer.

"However, in evaluating this new drug and health technology, I did not find a commensurate improvement in either morbidity or mortality statistics in chronic degenerative afflictions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. Costs had increased, but not the overall health index. We had dropped to about 23[rd] position among the nations of the world in health care."

This data, presented by an eminent physician/scientist, raises the logical question as to whether this may be a reasonable explanation as to why the strike by New York doctors several years ago resulted in a decline in the city's overall death rate. "At this point in time," Halstead concludes, "I have the profound conviction that America is on a disaster course in health care both economically and therapeutically....A dangerous therapeutic mind set exists in this country that it is better to die in an orthodox fashion than to survive in an unorthodox manner."

THE RAID

In reference to his implication that the government would rather allow an individual to die than to condone the application of "unorthodox" treatment, Dr. Halstead relates the following event he presented in his court trial:

"During my final oral argument I recounted the incident when defendant Alfred Dix and his wife had their home raided by the Los Angeles District Attorney. Mr. Dix had been using and selling the herbal drink." [The doctor is here speaking of a specific compound of Japanese herbs (ADS) from which a tea is made that many clinical trials, according to Halstead, have proven very effective in the treatment of cancer].

"Mrs. Dix had been diagnosed as having terminal abdominal cancer. She had had surgery, nine different types of chemotherapy, and over ninety different treatments of radiation, all of which had failed. Her doctors told her that she had only 30 to 45 days to live. She was bedridden, had given up hope, and was preparing to die. She and her husband had even contacted a mortician to make funeral arrangements.

"Mr. Dix then came in contact with ADS [the herbal compound]. After taking ADS for about ten days, Mrs. Dix began to feel better, started doing housework, shopping, traveling, and started entertaining again. I met Mr. and Mrs. Dix one day in the lobby of a hotel in Pasadena. She was walking, mentally alert, happy and laughing, and stated emphatically that she was feeling great. No aches or pains - thanks to ADS.

"At the time of the raid at the Dix home, the D.A. confiscated all of her ADS. Her husband begged and tearfully pleaded with the D.A. to release enough of the ADS for his wife's use. The D.A. refused to release any of the tea to her.

"The next time I saw Mrs. Dix was in the courtroom. She looked pale, in a weakened condition, unable to walk, crestfallen and anguished. A few days later she died - a broken woman, a victim of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

"What has happened to our national ideal of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Why has the prosecution denied Mrs. Dix the right to retain a cup of harmless adaptogenic tea which she purchased for her own cancerous condition? What has happened to her civil liberties?

"I could not think of a single tyrannical country in which this scenario could have taken place."

Perhaps, one might reason, Dr. Bruce Halstead's case and claims are somewhat of an isolated example of government intervention into the medical lives of Americans.