26 Facts About Andrew Weil

Andrew Thomas Weil was born in Philadelphia on June 8,1942, the only child of parents who operated a millinery store, in a family that was Reform Jewish.

Andrew Weil graduated from high school in 1959 and was awarded a scholarship from the American Association for the United Nations, giving him the opportunity to go abroad for a year, living with families in India, Thailand, and Greece.

Andrew Weil began hearing that mescaline enhanced creativity and produced visionary experiences, and finding little information on the subject, he read The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.

Andrew Weil had an early curiosity regarding psychoactive drugs, and in that period, met Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, and separately engaged in organized experimentation with mescaline.

Andrew Weil would write for and eventually serve as an editor of the Harvard Crimson.

Andrew Weil wrote of faculty experimentation with drugs in a series of Crimson pieces:.

Andrew Weil went on to complete one year of a two-year program at NIH, resigning due to "official opposition to his work with marijuana".

Andrew Weil is reported to have experienced opposition to this line of inquiry at the NIMH, to have departed to his rural northern Virginia home, and to have begun his practices of vegetarianism, yoga, and meditation, and work on writing The Natural Mind.

Andrew Weil's interests led him to explore the healing systems of indigenous people, and with this aim, Weil traveled throughout South America and other parts of the world, "collecting information about medicinal plants and healing", from 1971 to 1975, as a fellow for the Institute of Current World Affairs.

In 1994, Andrew Weil founded the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, Arizona, where he serves as its director.

Andrew Weil is the founder of True Food Kitchen, a restaurant chain serving meals on the premise that food should make you feel better.

Evidence-based medicine is a stated central component of the higher-order "system of systems" Andrew Weil envisions integrative medicine to be.

However, Andrew Weil is on record speaking disparagingly of conventional, evidence-based medicine, both in academic and popular contexts.

Andrew Weil acknowledges many experiences and individuals that have influenced his philosophical and spiritual ideas, and the techniques he considers valid in his approach to medicine.

Andrew Weil has been open about his own history of experimental and recreational drug use, including experiences with narcotics and mind-altering substances.

Andrew Weil has further stated that he respects the work of psychologist Martin Seligman, who pioneered the field of positive psychology and now directs the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Weil has professed admiration for the work of Stephen Ilardi, professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, and author of The Depression Cure.

Andrew Weil is widely recognized as having a seminal role in establishing the field of integrative medicine, where this field is defined as:.

Andrew Weil has expressed opposition to the war on drugs, and takes a measured, nuanced approach to the use of recreational drugs.

Andrew Weil co-edited the first volume, Integrative Oncology, with Donald Abrams, which appeared in 2009.

Andrew Weil was a regular contributor to High Times magazine from 1975 to 1983.

Medical professionals in particular have criticized Andrew Weil for promoting treatment claims and alternative medicine practices described as unverified or inefficacious, or for otherwise rejecting aspects of evidence-based medicine.

In 2006, the Center for Science in the Public Interest commented on a Time magazine piece by Andrew Weil rebutting a recent JAMA report on the failure of fish oil supplements to significantly reduce risk of serious heart arrhythmias, where he emphasized the benefits of fish oil supplements without a disclaimer that he had a direct commercial interest in the sale of these supplements.

Andrew Weil appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1997 and again in 2005, and Time named him one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005.

Andrew Weil was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 1998.

Andrew Weil appeared in the 2012 documentary on the need for a "rescue" of American healthcare, Escape Fire.