Robert Mendelsohn

Robert Mendelsohn    (doctor)
Born	July 13, 1926 Chicago
Died	April 5, 1988 (Age 61)
Nationality	US
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Religion	Judaism
Interests	• vaccine • Big Pharma • medical system • iatrogenesis
“Doctor-prescribed drugs of modern medicine kill more people than illegal street drugs.”

Robert S. Mendelsohn was an American pediatrician, anti-vaccinationist and critic of medical paternalism. He denounced unnecessary and radical surgical procedures and dangerous medications, reminding his readers of public health failures such as the 1976 swine flu outbreak and the damage caused to daughters of women who took the drug Diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy. He portrayed doctors as powerful priests of a primitive religion, with dishonesty as its central ethic. His mild manner appealed to the public, while his message infuriated his medical colleagues.

Education and career

Mendelsohn was born in Chicago, Illinois. He received his medical degree from the University of Chicago in 1951. He was certified by the American Board of Pediatrics. Mendelsohn had a full-time private pediatric practice from 1956 to 1967, and continued to see patients of all ages on a consultancy basis until his death in 1988.

For 12 years, Mendelsohn was an instructor at Northwestern University Medical College, and was associate professor of pediatrics and community health and preventive medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine for another 12 years.

Mendelsohn served as National Director of Project Head Start's Medical Consultation Service, a position he was later forced to resign after criticizing the “deadening atmosphere” of regular public schools. He served as Chairman of the Medical Licensing Committee of Illinois. He was president of the alternative medicine National Health Federation (NHF) between 1981 and 1982.

Views

Mendelsohn encouraged patients to look up the prescribing information for drugs they were considering taking, since “doctors either play down the side-effects [of drugs] or conceal them altogether.” He also encouraged patients to learn about lifestyle changes and natural approaches, rather than turning to powerful drugs like corticosteroids, the birth control pill, post-menopausal estrogens, anti-hypertension, anti-arthritis, and anti-cholesterol drugs. As a pediatrician, he was particularly disturbed by the dangerous drugging of children for so-called hyperactivity.

"Ninety percent of the most common operations, including cancer surgery, coronary bypass surgery, and hysterectomies, are at best of little value and at worst quite harmful."

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