Our History
1962 Dr Theron Randolph in the USA publishes Human Ecology and Susceptibility to the Chemical Environment, the first ever description of sensitivity to chemicals.
1968 Apollo 8 mission takes the first pictures of Earth from space (which forms part of our former logo, see home page), showing that we live on a small planet that we have to look after.
1976 Dr Richard Mackarness publishes Not All In The Mind, the first UK book to describe food intolerances and how to rid yourself of them.
1978 Dr Ronald Finn, one of our founders, publishes Food Allergy - Fact or Fiction? in the Lancet - the first ever double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge trial, proving that food intolerances could cause a variety of symptoms.
1979 The Clinical Ecology Group of 19 doctors starts meeting in London to discuss allergy and environmental factors in illness, later formalising the group as British Society for Clinical Ecology and around 1983 as British Society for Allergy and Environmental Medicine.
1984 the British Society for Nutritional Medicine is founded to promote the use and understanding of nutrition within the context of clinical medicine.
As the two societies evolved it became clear that the aims of the societies overlapped. In 1993 the societies merged to form the British Society for Allergy, Environmental and Nutritional Medicine, publisher of the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.
1995 the society publishes the report Effective Allergy Practice
1998 society members publish Environmental Medicine in Clinical Practice, the first and still the only textbook in this field
1999 the society publishes Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Recognition and Management
2005 the society’s name is changed to British Society for Ecological Medicine to reflect the wider aims of the society in addressing all of the many environmental factors that affect modern medicine.
2006 The society publishes The Health Effects of Waste Incineration
Next events
BSEM workshop with Dr Peter Gruenewald
BSEM newsletter
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Membership offer
Join the BSEM in 2014!
Join the BSEM in 2014 and receive a complementary copy of our textbook Environmental Medicine in Clinical Practice which retails for £28.
BSEM focus
"The Promise" - documentary on breast cancer screening
Documentary Film - The truth about the harms of the routine breast cancer screening program. More
Biolab & Great Plains Conference
Gut Function, Dysbiosis and Mental Health, International Conference 15th and 16th November 2014, London More
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Mitochondrial Dysfunction
This paper from Sarah Myhill, Norman Booth and John McLaren Howard examines the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. More
The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators - A BSEM Report
March 2013: Sutton Council just gave the go-ahead for a big incinerator to be built in South London. For more information about the health effects of waste incineration please see the BSEM report "The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators". More