News Release
April 8, 2005
Contact: Charles Miller, 202-686-2210, ext. 357
Cleveland Physician to Receive
Benjamin Spock Award
WASHINGTON -- Cleveland physician and surgeon Dr. Caldwell B.
Esselstyn, Jr., will be honored with the first Benjamin Spock Award
for Compassion in Medicine by the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine (PCRM), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization.
The award will be presented to Dr. Esselstyn on April 16 at PCRM’s
20th Anniversary Celebration, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin and attended
by a host of other celebrities, including Daryl Hannah, Alicia Silverstone,
and singer Emmylou Harris.
While serving as chairman of the Cleveland Clinic’s Breast
Cancer Task Force, Dr. Esselstyn became concerned about how physicians
approach the problems of cancer and heart disease, focusing on diagnosis
and treatment and often losing sight of prevention. He began a groundbreaking
research study in which he virtually eliminated heart disease among
his patients by encouraging them to change to a low-fat vegetarian
diet, adding medications only when necessary. The study is one of
the longest-running research trials of its type. Reporting in the
American Journal of Cardiology in 1999, Dr. Esselstyn found that
over a 12-year period, his patients had become virtually heart-attack
proof. Although all the patients had significant heart disease at
the study’s outset, 100 percent had stopped disease progression.
“Rather than simply hand out prescriptions, he worked with
his patients to get away from meat, dairy, and junk food, and take
control of their lives,” said PCRM president and founder Neal
Barnard, M.D. “Even skeptical patients soon realized that
Dr. Esselstyn’s approach could save their lives.” Dr.
Esselstyn served at the Cleveland Clinic for many years, as president
of the Staff and a member of its Board of Governors, chairman of
the Clinic’s Breast Cancer Task Force, and head of the Section
of Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery.
Dr. Esselstyn graduated from Yale University, and earned his M.D.
from Western Reserve University. At the 1956 Olympic Games he won
a Gold Medal as part of an eight-oared rowing team. As an Army surgeon
in Vietnam, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
Founded in 1985, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
is a nonprofit health organization that promotes preventive medicine,
especially good nutrition. PCRM also conducts clinical research
studies, opposes unethical human experimentation, and promotes alternatives
to animal research.
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