By the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research
Summary: Some talking points on the role of various nutrients in the prevention and treatment of cancer, including vitamins A and C, iodine, chlorophyll, and specific factors in the vitamin B complex such as choline, inositol, and betaine. Complete with references. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1949.
By Malcolm Lawrence
Summary: This report exposing the corruption and lack of integrity in the cancer-research industry was published under a nom-de-plume (pen name) to protect the author’s status as a medical researcher within the cancer-research establishment. (See the editor’s note preceding the article regarding this.) It describes how natural therapies were never given a chance to demonstrate efficacy, while expensive and toxic chemotherapeutic agents glided right through the research community. Notably, the story of Dr. Andrew Ivy of the University of Illinois and his Krebiozen treatment is told in this historically important document. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research special reprint 5-62, 1962. Original source unknown.
By Dr. William A. Albrecht
Summary: A comprehensive discussion of the amazing role of calcium in the soil and its effect on crops and animals, written by one of the greatest soil scientists of all time. Dr. Albrecht, who chaired the soils department at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, is known in the organic farming movement as the “father of soil fertility research.” Born in 1888, he published his first article on soil fertility in 1918 and would publish research papers continually until his death in 1974. Albrecht was a friend of Dr. Royal Lee, and the Lee Foundation published several of his papers, which are available in this archive. From The Land magazine, 1943. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 8.
By Marion B. Richards, DSc
Summary: While today synthetic supplements are generally considered beneficial or at worst harmless, early investigations into their therapeutic application painted a far different and disturbing picture. In this 1945 report from the British Medical Journal, pioneering biochemist Dr. Marion Richards reports on her investigations into the effects of synthetic vitamin B1 (known as aneurine in England at the time and as thiamine today). Dr. Richards found that female rats fed a supplement of synthetic B1 developed a subsequent deficiency of vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) so grave that the animals’ offspring died from lack of it during weaning. These results echoed other studies of synthetic B vitamin therapy, she notes, in which “excessive dosing with one particular factor of the B complex” appeared to lead to “secondary deficiencies” of other vitamins in the complex. In one of the most alarming of these experiments, dogs fed a diet enriched with synthetic B vitamins died faster than dogs fed an unenriched diet. Also worth noting in the study discussed here is that supplementation with additional calcium in the form of chalk only worsened the animals’ resulting vitamin B6 deficiency. Such unintended consequences speak to why “naturalist” researchers of the time warned of the dangers of widespread supplementation with synthetic micronutrients, pointing out that only whole foods of time-tested nutritional value can be relied on to provide vitamins and minerals in the forms and ratios required for human health. From British Medical Journal, 1945. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 10.
By N. Philip Norman, MD
Summary: A classic, definitive work on ulcerative colitis. Dr. Royal Lee described this remarkable book, which his foundation published in its entirety in 1950, as “worth its weight in gold.” Groundbreaking in its understanding of the lesions of malnutrition, the book makes a cogent case that ulcerative colitis is closely related to scurvy, the result of a deficiency of the vitamin C complex, along with additional nutrient deficiencies and other ill effects of a processed-food diet. 1950.
By E.K. Roosevelt
Summary: From the 1950s through the early 1980s, Edith Kermit Roosevelt wrote about issues of health and fitness in her popular syndicated column “Between the Lines.” In this article—the title of which pretty much sets the tone—she exposes the dangerous adulteration of America’s food with agrichemicals through facts, figures, and the outrage of someone aware of what was actually going on. Long before Rachel Carlon’s Silent Spring hit the stands, the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research was publishing fact-filled pieces like these warning the medical profession and the public of the wholesale poisoning of the country’s food supply. Original source unknown. Reprint 102, circa 1957.
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Royal Lee was one of the original fighters against the bleaching and refining of flour products. He considered it a national crime, and spoke out about it tirelessly from the early 1920s through the end of his life. In this article, aimed at homemakers, Dr. Lee gives a brief history of the practice of flour bleaching as well as the noble efforts to stop it. He also highlights the discovery by scientists that the chemicals involved in flour bleaching were deadly. “It seems that English investigators have found that the bleaching chemical universally used in this country for many years has been found poisonous enough to kill dogs in a few weeks if they receive the bleached flour, or bread made from it.” 1947.
By the Whole Food Society of England
Summary: A British perspective on the bleaching of flour in the year 1955. At that time, a new flour bleach, chlorine dioxide, was being introduced because the old bleach, nitrogen trichloride, or agene, had been shown to clearly be a nerve toxin in dogs. The authors point out that the official ban of agene came ten years after the results of the dog experiment were made known and five years after an announcement by the country’s Ministries of Food and Health officially condemning the substance. Why the long delay between identifying agene as a poison and barring it from the market? Simple, the article says: the millers needed time to come up with a new bleach. Rather than putting public health at the forefront and discontinuing the practice of flour bleaching altogether, the government and milling industry decided to continue the process because bleaching makes flour look appealing. Thus, after feeding the public for decades an additive whose safety had always been questionable, a new questionable additive was selected, and the bleached-flour industry kept rolling right along. From The Farmer. Reprint 78, 1955.
By Philip Harris and Paul Dunbar
Summary: A portfolio of four articles—two scientific studies and two commentaries—on the effects of deficiency diseases caused by white bread and other foods that have had the vitamin E complex refined out of their structure. A poignant example of how industrial-scale food refinement led to an industrial-scale deficiency in the diet of modern humankind. Articles published between 1949 to 1961 from various sources. Reprint 137A.
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Originally published in Health Culture, this 1955 article outlines the critical roles of natural vitamin complexes, such as vitamins A, B, C, D and F, in maintaining and restoring dental health. Dr. Lee specifically credits the research of the celebrated Dr. Weston Price: “Dr. Weston A. Price was the first dentist to publish an article asserting that dental caries was primarily a result of vitamin deficiency. This was in 1927. In 1923, I had prepared a paper on the subject of ‘The Systemic Cause of Dental Caries,’ and read it to the senior class of Marquette Dental College, subscribing to the same hypothesis.” Amazingly, conventional dentistry still fails to comprehend the basic truth that a properly nourished body is resistant to tooth decay. Reprint 30G, 1955.
By Dr. Simon Benson
Summary: Dr. Benson of the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research responds to an article titled “Are Vitamins Drugs?” in the trade journal The Apothecary. Benson clearly lays out the differences between the therapeutic application of food and food-based vitamins and the use of pharmaceutical medicines. He refutes medical dogma that insists that anything used therapeutically is automatically classified as a drug. (This definition, of course, conveniently puts any substance being used therapeutically under regulatory control of the FDA, even if it’s food.) This is an early and strong defense of natural approaches to healthcare and the freedom of physicians to treat their patients as they see fit, without government interference on behalf of trade groups such as the pharma/medical cartel. From The Apothecary, 1946. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 25.
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee comments on a report in the Drug Trade News on the upholding of a conviction of naturalist V.E. Irons. (For details on Irons’s original trial and conviction, see “The Irons Frame-up (Its Whys and Wherefores)” by Morris Bealle.) According to Lee, Irons was convicted essentially for publicizing this statement: “Nearly everyone in this country is suffering from malnutrition or [is] in danger of such suffering because of demineralization and depletion of soils and the refining and processing of food.” While this statement was supported time and time again by early nutrition studies, Irons nonetheless served a year in jail for his proclamation, which, Lee points out, was made in the same spirit of Dr. Harvey Wiley, the original head of the FDA who was ousted by representatives within the government influenced by the food-manufacturing and medical industries. 1957.
By Morris Bealle
Summary: Morris Bealle’s newsletter American Capsule News reports on the conviction, fine, and jailing of the great American naturalist Victor Earl Irons for the crime of informing the American people of what was happening to their food supply. “It is obvious that Mr. Irons has committed two ‘unpardonable sins’,” writes Bealle. “The first is distributing vitamins that keep people well and away from drug stores. The second is exposing some of the crimes of the Food and Drug Administration who, as Dr. [Harvey] Wiley said, are lynching, raping and murdering the laws passed by Congress to protect the public from poisoned and adulterated foods.” Irons, like his friend Dr. Royal Lee, warned the public of the depletion of America’s soil, the refining and processing of the basic food supply, and the cause-and effect-relationship of these practices to health. In the case, the FDA marched out five “health authorities” from Harvard, including the infamous Dr. Frederick Stare, to testify to the “fraudulent” nature of Irons’s statements. Irons was convicted on federal charges and served a year in jail. As this report reveals, those pioneers at the vanguard of nutritional knowledge paid dearly for the right to speak out about what was happening to America’s food supply, health, and freedom. From American Capsule News, 1956. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.
By G.L. Seifert and H.C. Wood
Summary: As read at the Second International Seaweed Symposium in 1956. Dr. Seifert reports on a study in which “the nutritional value of sea kelp and trace minerals was demonstrated.” In the experiment, the diet of 400 pregnant women—the majority suffering anemia—was fortified with tablets of dried giant bladder kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera). In the majority of the subjects, the anemia disappeared within six to eight weeks of the onset of supplementation. In addition, there was “a spectacular drop in the incidence of colds” among the subjects. (Anemia and a tendency to develop colds is a common problem faced by pregnant women, the investigators note.) Seifert adds that the success of the study is likely a result of the high trace mineral content of the kelp, and that one of the key effects of trace minerals may be their promotion of the actions of vitamins. Reprint 133, 1956.
By Tom A. Ellis
Summary: A newspaper account of a gathering of nationally known nutritionists and soil experts discussing the effects of trace-element deficiency on the health of soil, plants, livestock, and humans. Among the scientists attending were Dr. William Albrecht, the soil expert from the University of Missouri who’s been called the father of organic farming, and Dr. Francis Pottenger, Jr., whose famous cat-feeding experiments showed conclusively that the effects of malnutrition are passed on to subsequent generations. Several studies are discussed, showing the positive clinical effect of supplying trace elements to livestock and humans deficient in them and suggesting that the true cause of these deficiencies is a lack of trace elements in the soil in which the plants eaten by the animals and humans grew. These early experiments show clearly the critical nutritional role of trace minerals in the cycle of life. From the Springfield Daily News and Reader, Missouri. Reprint 92, 1949.
By George McGrath
Summary: In the 1950s, with mainstream media parroting the government’s pronouncements that Americans were the best fed people on Earth, it was left to fringe publications like the National Police Gazette to report on one of the biggest scandals of the twentieth century: the chemical poisoning of America’s foods. Though the Gazette was largely viewed as a tabloid, on occasion—between stories of murder and outlaws—the paper gave space to serious journalism. The following two articles, published in 1958, report the experiences of Dr. W.C. Hueper, a chief at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, who was silenced when he tried to warn the public of the myriad cancer-causing agents flooding the country’s food supply. According to Dr. Hueper, the long list of cancerous agents being used by American food manufacturers included artificial colors, dyes, surfactants, antifoaming agents, humectants, emulsifiers, preservatives, paraffins, and petrolatum-like substances. Dr. Hueper was particularly alarmed over the unregulated use of carcinogenic estrogen hormones by farmers to fatten their animals. “It is rather remarkable,” he said, “that biologically potent chemicals that are obtainable for medicinal reasons only by a licensed physician can be used freely in large quantities by individuals without any proper training of the potential health hazards.” For many Americans reports like this were the first news that dangerous chemicals were being added to their food, yet, as the articles’ author comments, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not only had decades of scientific warning about such substances, it actively thwarted investigators—like Dr. Hueper—who attempted to inform the public of the situation. From the National Police Gazette, 1958. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 18C..
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Two articles that appeared in Let’s Live magazine in 1952 and 1953. In “This Molasses War—Who is Prevaricating?,” Dr. Lee compares natural and refined sugars. He posits that carbohydrates are not essential in the human diet and offers proof by way of certain traditional peoples who eat no carbs and yet experience perfect health. He also discusses the virtues of molasses, which is rich in minerals and is protective against tooth decay, whereas white sugar promotes cavities. Lee also describes the famous experiments of Dr. Rosalind Wulzen of Oregon State College that led to the discovery of the “anti-arthritic factor” in molasses and raw cream that was later named after her. In “Bone Meal—Nutritional Source of Calcium,” Dr. Lee describes the virtues of finely powdered bone flour as a source of protein and minerals, particularly calcium. He states that for the teeth, cold-processed bone meal is unexcelled. He also discusses the role of trace minerals also found in bone meal. 1953.
By E.E. Rogers, MD
Summary: This is an excerpt from the book The Philosophy and Science of Health published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. Dr. Rogers, in relating to the book’s overall discussion of the decline of health in America, discusses how ill health begins on the farm, with deficient soils. He then proposes some methods for revitalizing the soil, thus invigorating the entire food chain. 1949.
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Here Dr. Royal Lee delivers perhaps the most succinct explanation of why natural vitamins and synthetic vitamins are entirely different entities. Natural vitamins—that is, vitamins as they are found in food—are complexes of associated compounds, he explains, which act together synergistically to deliver a nutritive effect to the body. In turn these complexes require minerals, in organic form, to activate them. All these things are found, together, in whole foods. Synthetic vitamins, on the other hand, consist of a single compound that has been deemed the “most active” of a natural vitamin complex and either isolated from the food or, worse, synthesized in a lab. Dr. Lee asks, “How can a single factor be isolated from a complex…and be justifiably sold with the claim that it is equal?” It can’t. However, “do not infer from this that synthetic vitamins have no effect,” he warns. “They do have drug effects—pharmacological actions that may or may not have much in common with the normal nutritional action.” In a country where over half the population takes synthetic vitamins, the implications of this paper are staggering. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, circa 1954.
By Joseph P. Ginsburg and John P. Reed
Summary: One of the earliest scientific assessments of DDT and pesticides in American agriculture. Ginsburg and Reed, of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in New Brunswick, report the results of their study measuring the amounts of DDT accumulated in the topsoil of various food-crop fields within the state. (DDT was introduced to the American market in 1947; this report was published in 1954.) Their findings agree with previous studies conducted in other parts of the country, namely that “DDT does not readily decompose in most of the cultivated soils and may, after repeated annual applications, remain in sufficiently large quantities to interfere with the growth of certain crops.” Ginsburg and Reed also note that while some crops were tolerant of the insecticide, others, such as tomatoes, squash, and snap beans, were significantly damaged by application of the chemical. From the Journal of Economic Entomology. Reprint 73, 1954.