Robert S. Mendelsohn

Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD, (b. 1926, d.1988) was an American pediatrician who criticized his profession, inveighing against pediatric practice, obstetric orthodoxy and the effect of the preponderance of male obstetricians, and vaccination. He also opposed water fluoridation, coronary bypass surgery, licensing of nutritionists, and the routine use of X-Rays. 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.

From 1981 to 1982, Mendelsohn was president of the National Health Federation. He also served as National Director of Project Head Start's Medical Consultation Service (a position he was later forced to resign after criticizing the public school system), and as Chairman of the Medical Licensing Committee of Illinois. He often spoke at NHF conventions and produced a newsletter and a syndicated newspaper column, both called The People's Doctor. He appeared on over 500 television and radio talk shows. In 1986, the National Nutritional Foods Association gave Mendelsohn its annual Rachel Carson Memorial Award for his "concerns for the protection of the American consumer and health freedoms."

Mendelsohn considered himself a "medical heretic." One of his books charged that "Modern Medicine's treatments for disease are seldom effective, and they're often more dangerous than the diseases they're designed to treat"; that "around ninety percent of surgery is a waste of time, energy, money and life"; and that most hospitals are so loosely run that "murder is even a clear and present danger."

Education
Mendelsohn received his medical degree from the University of Chicago in 1951.

Criticism of medical orthodoxy
Mendelsohn asserted issues regarding drug induced nutritional deficits and other 'subtle' drug side effects, such as aspirin's interference with blood clotting factors and its propensity to reduce levels of Vitamin C.

Mendelsohn said that the greatest danger to American women's health was often their own doctors, and contended that chauvinistic physicians subjected female patients to degrading, unnecessary and often dangerous medical procedures. Hysterectomy and radical mastectomy, according to Mendelsohn, were among the most indiscriminately recommended surgical procedures.

Publications

 * 1982, Male Practice: How Doctors Manipulate Women, ISBN 0-8092-5721-1
 * 1987, How To Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8092-4995-2
 * 1991, Confessions of a Medical Heretic, ISBN 0-8092-7726-3 (This book was first published in 1980)