Dr. Lendon Smith - November 30, 2001
*** In Memoriam ***
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Dr. Lendon Smith, M.D. has provided the content for the AAA Alternative Health Tips for almost three years.
Dr. Lendon Smith, the Portland pediatrician and author whose amiable wit and often unorthodox advice on childhood nutrition landed him on The Tonight show with Johnny Carson more than 60 times, died Saturday morning in Portland of complications from heart surgery. He was 80.
In his last month, Smith traveled to Florida, Seattle and Sacramento, Calif, to deliver talks on medicine and nutrition, which he thought largely determines health. His family said the busy schedule was characteristic of the author of 14 medical advice books.
Smith's main TV presence, The Children's Doctor," debuted in five minute segments on Portland's KGW-TV and enjoyed national run from 1967 to 1969. The show and Smith's writings irritated many In the medical, establishment, who Thought Smith was pushing personal views instead of scientifically established theories. Among other stances, he advocated mega doses of vitamins and was an early advocate of limiting milk and sugar in children's diets.
But Smith's down-to-earth style was a hit with homemakers, if a 1967 Hostess House column in The Oregonian had it right: "Mothers nearly break a leg getting their work done to be in front of the set when he comes on, "it said. Smith, nicknamed Dunny," said his goal was to present cheerful information. One 1968 article called him the nation's second best-known pediatrician, after Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Dunny was a tall, slim, very verbal, very funny, very entertaining and very charming caring guy, said Bill Montgomery, a friend and former television executive. He was always on the cutting edge of thinking of the alternatives or pushing it beyond the conventional program.
Smith began phasing out his active pediatric practice in the late 1960s. His worst public trouble came in 1973, when the Oregon State Board of Medical Examiners revoked his privilege to prescribe addictive drugs because he gave Ritalin to drug users.
Tracy Smith, the oldest of Lendon and Julie Smith's five children, said the suspension helped prompt her father to turn away from traditional medicine and toward holistic and alternative approaches, including acupuncture and chiropractic. He eventually became an opponent of using Ritalin to treat hyperactive children. Some people thought he was too out there, but he just thought every avenue should be open to exploration, said Tracy Smith, 51. There was no bad theory. They should all be examined.
Lendon Smith was born in Portland on June 3,1921. His father, Dr. L Howard Smith, was also a pediatrician. Smith went to Benson High School, an all-boys polytechnic school, joining the cheerleading squad. In the 1940s, he graduated from Reed College, where he minored in acting, and the University of Oregon Medical School. He was an intern at Minneapolis General Hospital and did his residency at St Louis Children's Hospital and Doernbecher Children"s Hospital in Portland. He married Julie Starhelm, a nurse, in 1948. She died in 1999.
Smith started his TV career by filling in one day at KGW when a guest didn't show up for a morning talk show. He soon had his own television show, The Children's Doctor, which was syndicated nationally. In 1969, he wrote his first book of the same title, and was soon in demand for TV and radio appearances across the country.
Besides The Tonight Show, Smith's talk-show stints included appearances with Merv Griffin, Dinah Shore, Phil Donahue and Dick Cavett.
In a far more buttoned-down time, Lendon Smith talked about anything from pinworms and constipation to hyperactivity, allergies and anemia. He stunned the dairy industry by suggesting milk wasn't always perfect food for babies.
Smith advocated removing all forms of sugar, white flour and most processed foods from a hyperactive child's diet, giving mega doses of vitamins and minerals in-stead. In general, he advocated nutritional and megavitamin therapy for everything from dandruff and backache to hyperactivity. We are what we eat, he said in 1984. From colic to allergy to hyperactivity to schizophrenia and alcoholism, a variety of physical and behavior problems can often be traced to faulty nutrition ... Our body tries to tell us these things, but we don't listen.
In a 1980s article titled "Lendon Smith Strikes Again", the University of California Cooperative Extension publication Nutrition Perspectives called Smith one of the "primary purveyors of nutrition misinformation," and warned that some of the vitamin doses he recommended could be dangerous. Over the years, Smith increasingly allied himself with naturopaths, homeopaths and chiropractors, becoming the first medical doctor appointed to the board of the Portland-based National College of Naturopathic Medicine.
His credits include two Emmy Award-winning television specials, "My Mom is Having a Baby" and "Where Do Teen-agers Come From." "Feed Your Kids Right," published in 1979, has sold more than 100,000 copies.
Smith is survived by his brother, David Smith of Tucson, Ariz.; two daughters, Tracy Smith and Nancy Hoffman; and two sons, Eric and Tim; nine grandchildren; and one great grandchild. A third son, Duncan Smith, died in 1991. He donated most of his estate to the Rosemont School for girls, the family said. The family plans private services next weekend.
In 1968, Smith described an ideally disciplined child. He could have been describing himself You want the child to be able to rebel against society and the establishment, but not enough to get into trouble, he said. Just enough to be, say, a courteous rebel.
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