Nutrition for Optimal Health Association, Inc.

Theron Grant Randolph, MD

Dr. Randolph was a founding member of NOHA’s Professional Advisory Board. He educated thousands of his patients on the environmental impingements on their health and pioneered an ecological orientation in medicine. In the early 1950’s he discovered that a number of his patients were being make ill by environmental exposures to everyday chemicals such as pesticides in foods, auto exhaust, and gas cooking stoves. They would recover from what had often been chronic symptoms when the exposures were removed. If they were re-exposed acute symptoms often flared up. In 1962 based on his previous articles and clinical observations he summarized his findings in his medical monograph, Human Ecology and Susceptibility to the Chemical Environment. He later co-authored an equivilent book for the non-medical public, An Alternative Approach to Allergies: The New Field of Clinical Ecology Unravels the Environmental Causes of Mental and Physical Ills with Ralph W. Moss, PhD. In addition, he published over 350 scientific papers which have contributed to the treatment and understanding of numerous diseases. His physician colleagues and followers honored him for originating and developing the comprehensive environmental control unit, which is used as a technique for demonstrating cause and effect relationships from exposure to common foods and environmental chemicals. Also, he played a crucial role in founding and encouraging the development of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.

In 1944, Dr. Randolph began a private practice and became a member of the staff of Northwestern University Medical School. He boldly announced that he did not follow the familiar skin tests favored by the other orthodox allergists, but concentrated on food ingestion tests. When Dr. Randolph made his morning rounds, some medical students asked to accompany him. His quiet, dignified manner attracted inquisitive students. By following Dr. Randolph, the students became involved in a quest to find the demonstratable cause of the patient's illness. Common foods (such as corn) turned out to be the most frequent causes, but first the food had to be unmasked and avoided.

This courageous, indomitable, single-minded clinician followed his convictions in the 1950s and 1960s, at great personal cost. In 1949, he was invited to testify before the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, DC. He requested that all food ingredients, especially corn, cane, and beet sugar, be listed on all processed food. After returning to Chicago, he could no longer mention his medical school affiliation in his articles; a major food manufacturer suddenly cancelled his research grant, which had previously been approved for extension; and he was terminated from the staff of Northwestern University Medical School, "as a pernicious influence on medical students".

Undiplomatic and blunt, a man of unwavering integrity, he made many enemies in the traditional medical world and no doubt in the industrial world. Revered by many, those whom he helped, he was reviled by some, those who through ignorance or denial chose to ignore his profound and brilliant discovery of "the chemical problem." Through simple ellimination then re-exposure tests, he discovered the cause of many symptoms and diseases was not only common food, but also the many extremely small, "safe" repeated doses of the millions of un-tested chemical products most American people use. Common ones include: perfume, after-shave, scented soap, cleaners, air "fresheners", pesticides, fertilizers, carpets, pressed or ply wood, and natural gas. You can immagine how little the many rich and powerful companies, who make and sell these products that contain hidden toxins, want this secret to get out.

Dr. Randolph's approach involved much more time and effort for both the doctor and the patient to discover exactly what this patient's individual sensitivities were, and then to avoid them. On the other hand, starting with the mind altering drugs in the early 1950s, the conventional doctor simply had to prescribe a pill and have the patient to take it. This led to the rapid growth of our billion dollar pharmecalogical industry. Drugs simply smother the symptoms, and often lead to additional bad side effects. Dr. Randolph's ecological approach, while it initially takes much more time and effort, identifies the true cause(s) of the patients symptoms, and allows them to return to healthy, happy, productive lives without taking any drugs at all.