The Cast
Dr. Michael Greger
Michael Greger, M.D., is a physician and Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States. He is an internationally recognised speaker on a number of important public health and social justice issues. He is also the author of Carbophobia: The Scary Truth Behind America's Low Carb Craze and Heart Failure: Diary of a Third Year Medical Student, and he has contributed to a number of other books on nutrition and food safety issues.
In addition to debating the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Director before the FDA, Dr. Greger was invited as an expert witness to defend Oprah Winfrey in the infamous "meat defamation trial."
He is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Dr. Neal Barnard, M.D.
Dr. Neal Barnard is a nutrition researcher and adjunct associate professor of medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. He is also the president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the author of nine books on diet and health, including Foods that Fight Pain and Food for Life.
Dr. Barnard's interest in healthy eating evolved over many years. His family background includes both doctors and cattle ranchers - two groups that often disagree over health issues. Before attending medical school, Dr. Barnard worked as an autopsy assistant, where he observed heart disease and the other deadly effects of a bad diet, firsthand.
Dr. Barnard is also a rigourous opponent of unethical research practices. Since founding PCRM in 1985, he has spearheaded many successful campaigns to promote alternatives to the use of animals in medical research and education. PCRM also promotes higher standards in human research, and has fought against unethical human experiments, including a U.S. Government study in which healthy short children were given a genetically engineered growth hormone.
Professor Walter C. Willett, MD, Dr.PH
Dr. Walter Willett is Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and attended Michigan State University and the University of Michigan Medical School, before obtaining a Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr. Willett is a Co-Investigator of the Nurses' Health Study I and Principal Investigator of the Nurses' Health Study II, studies designed to examine the association between lifestyle and nutritional factors and the occurrence of breast cancer and other major illnesses. In 1986, he initiated a parallel prospective study of diet in relation to cancer and cardiovascular disease among 52,000 men. His research findings show a positive association between animal fat and red meat consumption and risk of colon cancer.
He has written over 700 articles, primarily on lifestyle risk factors for heart disease and cancer, as well as the textbook Nutritional Epidemiology, 2nd edition, published by Oxford University Press. His recent book for the general public, Eat, Drink and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, has appeared on most major best seller lists.
Howard F. Lyman, LL.D
Howard F. Lyman is a fourth-generation family farmer from Montana. He worked in agriculture for almost forty years and has learnt, through extensive personal experience, that chemically-based agricultural production methods are unsustainable and ecologically disastrous.
As a farmer, Howard worked in an organic dairy, owned a large factory feedlot and farmed thousands of acres of crops, including wheat, barley, oats, corn, alfalfa and grass. He reproduced a herd of more than 1,000 commercial beef cows, and has raised chickens, pigs and turkeys.
In 1979, a tumour on Howard's spinal cord paralysed him from the waist down and changed his life forever. On recovery from surgery, which enabled him to walk again, Howard followed through on a promise he had made when the tumour was discovered: to do what was right, no matter the cost.
He founded Voice for a Viable Future, an organization of which he is still president, and became a vegan. He was sued, along with Oprah Winfrey, in the infamous "meat defamation trial", and is happy to be known as 'the mad cowboy'.
Maneka Gandhi
Maneka Gandhi is doing for the animals of India what Mahatma Gandhi did for the people. She is one of India's most forthright and remarkable figures. She is a leading environmentalist, animal activist and a crusader for vegetarianism. She is a vegan, as well as an author, political commentator, columnist, television and radio personality. She has been called a foe of corruption and is the energetic founder of India's leading animal advocacy group, People for Animals. Maneka Gandhi's life has been steeped in politics. Her husband, tragically killed in an air accident, was the son of Indira Gandhi. Maneka's son Varun has followed her and his grandmother into public life, and many speculate that he will one day be Prime Minister.
As a government minister, Maneka was often quoted on subjects that most others in public life dared not address. Ultimately, her outspokenness in condemning the biomedical industry cost her dearly and she was discharged from her ministry position. Undeterred and unapologetic, she continues her crusade against the biomedical community. She is interested in writing, animal rights and welfare, environmental protection and the study of law. She loves reading and gardening in her spare time. Her most recent project has been to produce cruelty-free ahimsa peace silk and she runs 22 animal shelters throughout India together with her sister and many animal lovers.
T Colin Campbell
Dr. Campbell is a Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University. He has received more than 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and authored more than 300 research papers. His legacy, The China Study, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. The study was the culmination of a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. In recent years Dr. Campbell has turned his attention to public education and outreach, through his lectures and his website www.tcolincampbell.org
Caldwell Esselstyn Jr
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. from Western Reserve University. In 1956, pulling the No. 6 oar as a member of the victorious United States rowing team, he was awarded a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He was trained as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and at St. George's Hospital in London. In 1968, as an Army surgeon in Vietnam, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
In 1991, Dr. Esselstyn served as President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, That same year he organized the first National Conference on the Elimination of Coronary Artery Disease, which was held in Tucson, Arizona. In 1997, he chaired a follow-up conference, the Summit on Cholesterol and Coronary Disease, which brought together more than 500 physicians and health-care workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In April, 2005, Dr. Esselstyn became the first recipient of the Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine.
Professor Emeritus David Pimentel
Professor Emeritus David Pimentel - Entomology, Ecology and Systematics, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University
Author of 900 scientific papers including 20 books. His research interests include natural resource management including soil, water, energy, biodiversity, and ecosystems. His current studies include water resources, biodiversity conservation, diseases due to environmental degradation, soil degradation, energy use in agriculture, and exotic species invasions.
John A McDougall
Physician and nutrition expert. He has been studying, writing and "speaking out" about the effects of nutrition on disease for over 30 years.
Dr. McDougall has cared for thousands of patients over almost 3 decades of medical practice and has run a highly successful live-in program for more than 17 years. Dr. McDougall has developed a nourishing , low-fat, starch-based diet that not only promotes a broad range of dramatic and lasting health benefits such as weight (fat) loss, but most importantly can also reverse serious illness, such as heart disease, without drugs.
He has written a number of books including The McDougall Plan: 12 Days to Dynamic Health, McDougall's Medicine: A Challenging Second Opinion, The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss, The New McDougall Cookbook, The McDougall Program for Women, and his latest ground breaking book, The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart.
Noam Mohr
Noam Mohr Physicist with degrees from Yale and Penn. He has worked on global warming campaigns for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, for which he published several reports on climate change and fuel economy standards, including Flirting with Disaster, Pumping Up the Price, and Storm Warning.
Professor Tom Lyons
Professor Tom Lyons holds an established chair within the School of Environmental Science at Murdoch University As an experimental micrometeorologist, his research involves the use of low flying (~10m) aircraft, balloons, satellites, surface observations and numerical models. His interest is concentrated on the lowest 200 metres of the atmosphere where we all live and is directed towards the solution of environmental problems.
Peter Singer
Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), University of Melbourne. He specialises in practical ethics, approaching ethical issues from a preference utilitarian and atheistic perspective.
He has served, on two occasions, as chair of philosophy at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he ran unsuccessfully as a Green candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, he was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies.