Victor Herbert was an American hematologist who did ground-breaking work on folate and how its deficiency led to megaloblastic anemia and was a proponent of accurate and responsible nutrition information.
Career
His post at the end of his career was Professor of Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Chief of Mount Sinai's Hematology and Nutrition Research Laboratory in the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center. His self experimentation to prove the health benefits of folic acid by living on diet of thrice-boiled chicken, marshmallows and jelly was reported on in the third episode of the BBC series the Medical Mavericks.
Military service
Herbert served in four wars: World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the first Gulf War. On retirement his rank was Lt. Col..
Herbert was critical of alternative medicine claims and nutrition quackery. He was the author of Vitamins and `Health' Foods: The Great American Hustle with Stephen Barrett and the book Nutrition Cultism. The latter was described by The New England Journal of Medicine as "a must for all readers who value the importance of nutrition in public health but are chagrined by the pretenders who exploit the public with food frauds, dietary cures, and nutrition nonsense." His book The Vitamin Pushers, also co-authored with Barrett was an exposé of quacks in the health food industry, based on more than twenty years of research.
Awards
McCollum Award, American Society of Clinical Nutrition
Middleton Award, Veterans’ Administration
Robert H. Hermon Award, American Society of Clinical Nutrition
Herbert, V., Baker, H., Frank, O., Pasher, I., Sobotka, H. & Wasserman, L. R. The measurement of folic acid activity in serum: a diagnostic aid in the differentiation of the megaloblastic anaemias. Blood 15:228-235.
Waxman, S., Schreiber, C. & Herbert, V. Radioisotopic assay for measurement of serum folate levels. Blood 38:219-228.
Herbert, V. & Gottlieb, C. W. Haemoglobin-coated charcoal assay for serum vitamin in B-12. Blood 28:130-132.
Das, K. C. & Herbert, V. The lymphocyte as a marker of past nutritional status: persistence of abnormal lymphocyte deoxyuridine suppression test and chromosomes in patients with past deficiency of folate and vitamin B-12. British Journal of Haematology 38: 219-233.
Herzlich, B. & Herbert, V. Depletion of serum holotranscobalamin II. An early sign of negative vitamin B-12 balance. Laboratory Investigation 58: 332-337.
