Dear Miss Isaacson:

Thank you for inviting me to join the board of Holistic
Vision Canada. I am pleased to accept your invitation. I do so only
because I have been concerned for such a time about the lack of
proper treatment of the mentally ill. For years I have been
fighting to bring sanity into psychiatry. Our native peoples have
been almost destroyed not only by the way they have been treated but
by the addition of the typical high junk food diet of high tech
peoples. I suspect that First Nations have been hurt more by the
terrible effect of high carbohydrate diets, white flour and alcohol
than by any other means. They need to be educated as does the
government of Canada which remains woefully ignorant of the real
nutritional needs of all Canadians. I am pleased to remain on your
board as long as you continue to fight for for nutritional sanity.

A Hoffer

Dr. Abram Hoffer was a world-renowned Canadian psychiatrist, physician, and author whose work profoundly reshaped understandings of the relationship between nutrition and mental health. Over the course of his career, he published more than one hundred peer-reviewed scientific and medical journal articles and co-authored several influential books, including Orthomolecular Psychiatry, Niacin Therapy in Psychiatry, and How to Live Longer and Feel Better. Dr. Hoffer pioneered the therapeutic use of high-dose niacin (vitamin B3) in the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental health conditions, advocating for biochemical and nutritional approaches at a time when they were widely dismissed. He famously described his clinical work as operating an “underground railroad” for schizophrenia sufferers—quietly helping patients recover outside the confines of institutional psychiatry—leaving a lasting legacy in orthomolecular medicine and integrative mental health care.


Note: Dr. Abram Hoffer, orthomolecular psychiatrist, was on the board of HVC until he died in 2009. In his later years he was registered with the I.O.N.C. as a nutritionist and helped to found what is today the designation of Registered Orthomolecular Holistic Practitioner (ROHP).