Madam, - Kilian Kelly (May 6th) responding to my letter of April 21st, forthrightly dismisses the "personal opinions" of nutrition expert Patrick Holford, whom Dr Kelly is unable to accept as being "qualified to assess the effectiveness of drug therapy", and Dr Vernon Coleman, whom I had also quoted. It is my personal opinion that Dr Kelly does both Mr Holford and Dr Coleman an injustice, as I propose to illustrate.
Mr Holford is not merely "a nutritionist" but an award-winning medical journalist and "one of the world's leading authorities on new approaches to health and nutrition" ( Daily Mail). The founder in 1984 of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and in 2003 of the Brain Bio Centre at ION ("pioneering the optimum nutrition approach for mental health"), his internationally best-selling books (which include the New Optimum Nutrition Bible, Food is Better Medicine than Drugsand The Holford Low-GI Diet) are all readily accessible to the lay reader such as myself (and appeal to me particularly because for the most part they bear out what has been my own personal experience).
Dr Coleman is not simply a former GP who has spent most of his career writing tabloid newspaper articles and books on a variety of highly alarmist themes. His views, too, Dr Kelly recommends, "should be taken with a pinch of salt". Described as "the revered guru of medicine" by The Nursing Times; "probably the best-known health writer for the general public in the world today" ( The Therapist); "one of our most enlightened, trenchant and sensible dispensers of medical advice" ( The Observer), he is the living terror of the British medical establishment.
A doctor of science as well as a medical graduate, Dr Coleman is probably one of the most brilliant men alive today. His extensive medical knowledge renders him fearless, and even the British Medical Journalhas conceded that "his advice is optimistic and enthusiastic".
"A persuasive writer", according to the Nursing Standard, "whose arguments, based on research and experience, are sound", and "the most influential medical writer in Britain" ( Devon Life), he is probably best described, by the Western Morning News, as "crusading for a more complete awareness of what is good and bad for our bodies". Tellingly, it adds: "In the course of that, he has made many friends and some powerful enemies". - Yours, etc,
Dr BRENDA O'HANRAHAN,
Park Lane,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.