Innovatia

heads with health ministers and fellow doctors. In 1982 he founded the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in Melbourne. This elite program was open only to certified medical doctors, and required a mini- mum of three years’ rigorous part-time study to achieve a fellowship upon graduation. The col- lege has since graduated more than 700 doctors, one of whom hailed the courses for addressing “the many important things not taught at any traditional medical school in Australia and, al- most certainly, anywhere in the world – particu- larly as regards nutritional science.” ACNEM pro- vides course material and training subject matter which is strongly evidence-based and consistent with traditional scientific methodologies. The college forms part of a larger progressive trend across the country, encompassing new scientific thinking about nutrition, environmen- tal medicine and therapies such as prolotherapy

and high-dose intravenous vitamin C injections, which were once considered “fringe” and are now gaining acceptance.

Maximising Nutritional Health Amid COVID-19 and beyond, it would serve Australia well for the medical establishment to countenance new/old approaches to fortifying immunity and optimising health. By Professor Ian Brighthope

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”

Dr. Ng Eng Kee, a Malaysian medical doctor fa- mous there for his charitable missionary work in the remote Pahang jungle region, emigrated to Australia more than 45 years ago. He has been an acknowledged world-leading acupuncturist since, whilst running a full practice, and is still active today at 84. He has consistently partic- ipated in world conferences, and notes that some of the best recent advances in acupunc- ture have occurred not in China but in Sweden. He has taught and certified over 500 medical doctors in this ancient Chinese remedy. Along with two doctor friends, he was responsible for Australia becoming the first western nation to provide private health rebates for acupuncture during the 1980s. These and other trends, including the recogni- tion and regulation of organic farming and foods, are on the rise. Across the board, one can observe a progressive movement combining new and old knowledge, methods and treatments enter- ing the mainstream of medicine, spurred on by a growing legion of medical doctors. More than 35 years ago, Professor Brighthope founded biocentric nutrition and vitamin clinics

a growing number of medical doctors driven by duty of care and curiosity to examine potential cures outside mainstream medical practice. As a result, he has frequently found himself at logger-

Editor’s introduction, by John Keeney The following piece on vitamin therapy was writ- ten by Professor Ian Brighthope, a doctor and surgeon. For 50 years, he has been a leader of

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