Stephen Barrett, M.D.
May 10, 2019
Curious Credentials
Null says he holds an associate degree in business administration from Mountain State College in West Virginia, a bachelor’s degree from
Thomas A. Edison State College in New Jersey, and a PhD in human nutrition and public health sciences from The Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Two papers he co-authored during the early 1980s identified him as Gary Null, M.S,” but I have seen no information about the source of that credential.
Edison State (
renamed Thomas Edison State University in 2015) is a nontraditional school that now operates primarily through the Internet. It is accredited, but at the time Null “attended,” it awarded bachelor’s degrees based on career experience, equivalency exams, and courses taken at other schools. In the late 1980s, a prominent college guidebook described it this way:
Thomas A. Edison State College, established in 1972, administers an external degree program that enables qualified students to earn or work toward a college degree without attending college in the usual way. There is no resident faculty, no campus, no classrooms, and no library. Administrative officers in Trenton evaluate college-level learning achieved through work or life experiences, self-study, college courses taken previously, industry-sponsored education programs, military instruction, etc. The college administers its own examinations in the liberal arts and sciences, business, and radiologic technology under the Thomas Edison College Examination Program [7].
The Union Institute (now called the Union Institute and University) is also accredited, but during Null’s exposure, its degree requirements and standards for health-related doctoral degrees differed greatly from those of most traditional universities.
Students designed their own program, formed and chaired their own doctoral committee, and were required to attend only an introductory colloquium and a few interdisciplinary seminars. Null’s thesis, entitled “
A Study of Psychological and Physiological Effects of Caffeine on Human Health,” was approved in August 1989. The approval document states that his PhD committee was composed of a “core faculty member,” three “adjunct professors,” two “peers,” and a “second core reader.” The “core faculty member,” Peter Fenner, was a well-credentialed academician whose expertise (in
geologic sciences) was not related to Null’s topic. One of the three “adjunct professors” was Martin Feldman, MD, a “complementary” physician (and “clinical ecologist”) who has pinch-hit for Null as a radio host, and
helped develop some of Null’s books and supplement formulations. The other two were Philip J. Hodes and Elayne Kahn. When I asked a school official about their background or location, he replied that information was in storage and was too difficult to obtain. In 2005, I located mention of “Dr. Philip Jay Hodes, Ph.D, Ed.D., Practitioner Holistic, Health Detoxification & Orthomolecular Nutritionist, Consultant” on a Web site that sold “natural tropical herbal medicines.” [8] I also discovered that Elayne Kahn, who died in 2013, was a psychologist in New York City who
coauthored a book with Null that was published in 1976 [9].
Traditional universities require that research for a doctoral degree in a scientific discipline make a genuine contribution to the scientific literature. Null’s thesis made no such contribution. The stated purpose of his project was to evaluate (a) caffeine’s effects on “adrenal function determined by a medical examination,” (b) “its perceived psychological effects as recorded in a questionnaire and daily diary, and (c) “the anabolic effect of caffeine according to a theory proposed by Dr. E. Revici.” (Emanuel Revici, MD, was a physician in New York City whose methods were disparaged by the American Cancer Society. State licensing authorities placed Revici on probation in 1988 and revoked his license in 1993 after concluding that he had violated the terms of his probation.)
The first part of Null’s thesis summarized information about caffeine published mainly in scientific journals. The data for the report of his study were obtained by observing two groups of volunteers. One group contained eleven chronic caffeine users who stopped their caffeine intake for a week and then took caffeinated tea for a week. The other group contained six nonusers who drank caffeinated tea for one week and then drank decaffeinated tea. The total number of participants is unclear. Null’s thesis states that six others who began in the first group and five others who began in the second group dropped out of the study because they were uncomfortable. It also states that “at least thirteen” other users were disqualified for noncompliance.
The “medical evaluation” included two tests. One compared each volunteer’s blood pressure when lying down and when standing up. The other was a chemical test for the amount of sodium and chloride in the urine. Null claims that these tests can detect “diminished adrenal function.” Unfortunately for his thesis, they have no practical value for this purpose. The method Null used to determine “the anabolic effect of caffeine” involved measurement of the specific gravity, pH (acidity), and surface tension of single samples of the urine—a test used by Revici. Null noted that the theory behind the test “is still the subject of debate and has not yet gained wide scientific support”—which is a rather strange way to describe a test that is utterly worthless for any medical purpose and could never gain widespread scientific acceptance. The specific gravity of urine reflects the concentration of dissolved substances and depends largely on the amount of fluid a person consumes. The acidity depends mainly on diet, but varies considerably throughout the day. Thus, even when these values are useful for a metabolic determination, information from a single urine sample would be meaningless. The surface tension of urine has no medically recognized diagnostic value.
Following 41 pages of findings, calculations, tables, and graphs, Null concluded that “chronic caffeine users tend to have diminished adrenal function, which he blamed on “exhaustion” of the glands. “Fortunately,” he added, “there are non-drug nutritional programs which have the ability to repair or rebalance weakening adrenal glands toward normal.” The program consisted of “diminishing stressors,” implementing strategies to diminish anxiety, and taking doses of five vitamins and three other products.
In January 2005, I received a threatening letter from attorney David Slater, General Counsel for Gary Null & Associates, Inc., who demanded that I remove a previous version of this article from Quackwatch. One part of the letter complained:
You also attack Mr. Null’s Ph.D. thesis, written over 25 years ago, on the negative effects of caffeine on human health. You say that it “contributes nothing.” Despite your assertion that the thesis was meritless, two updated versions of the paper were accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Nutrition (Volume 33, No.1, 1981) and the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry (Vol. 13 1st Quarter 1984). We understand that only a small percentage of Ph.D. theses are actually accepted for publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal, and Mr. Null’s thesis was published in two different ones. Moreover, Mr. Null’s original clinical and laboratory work demonstrating the deleterious effects of caffeine on the human body became a catalyst for subsequent research on the topic by other scientists. Based on his original findings about caffeine, Null’s advocacy against caffeine has now become a major public health position. Accordingly, it is inaccurate for you to state that Mr. Null’s Ph.D. thesis about caffeine contributed “nothing.” [2]
After comparing the articles to Null’s PhD thesis, I made the following observations:
- Since Null’s thesis was published in 1989, I don’t see how “updated versions” of it could have been published in 1981 and 1984.
- The 1981 and 1984 articles have multiple authors [10,11]. Null is not listed as lead author of either one. The papers give no indication of who contributed what to the paper.
- The 1981 article was a summary of published information about caffeine that was similar to the summary in Null’s thesis.
- The 1984 article reported a study of 11 volunteers which is similar to the one reported in Null’s thesis. It is not clear whether the thesis was based on the same data or whether Null did a second study.
- Neither journal has much of a reputation. As far as I can tell, neither one is indexed by MEDLINE.
- My MEDLINE search for “Null G” found only one article that was coauthored by Null and appeared in a pharmacy magazine [12].
When I asked Slater to clarify the time frames and to tell me where Null got the “M.S.” degree listed after his name in the articles, he replied:
“My client has instructed me to cease all further communications with you. He repeats his demand that you remove the offensive and libelous material from your website or face legal action.” [13]
Additional questions remain.
Has Null completed any science-based courses related to nutrition and public health? If so, (a) what did he take, (b) when did he take them, (c) did any of them involve classroom attendance, and (d) were any of them related to his degrees? I also wonder when he enrolled in The Union Institute. In response to these questions, Slater replied that Null will not provide further information about his transcripts, coursework, or other details related to his degrees and that he regarded my request as intrusive and an invasion of his privacy [14]. Why do you suppose he said that?
In 2002, after a thorough review, the Ohio Board of Regents severely criticized the Union Institute’s Ph.D. program. The review team’s conclusions—which were similar to mine—included:
- Curricular areas appeared somewhat nebulous and undefined.
- Demonstration of research competencies, and comprehensive demonstrations of learning were not evidenced.
- Learning events required of or actually taken by doctoral level learners may be substantively different in content from what is specified in a learners’ program of study. The relevance of these learner activities for learners’ academic development may be questionable.
- The assessment of the learner’s research competency in the admissions process often seems inadequate.
- Provisions for learning the techniques and methods of research and analysts during the program seems insufficient.
- Expectations for student scholarship at the doctoral level were not as rigorous as is common for doctoral work.
- Interviews with faculty and students did not provide sufficient evidence that the Learner Committees were capable of meeting doctoral level learner needs.
- There was evidence of committee members without appropriate expertise in the learner’s field of study [15].
As a result, the Ohio Board of Regents placed Union on provisional authorization and Ph.D. program was restructured so that it would no longer issue substandard health-related Ph.D. degrees. In 2004, the
Cincinnati Courier reported that the U.S. Department of Education had refused to pay at least $8 million in financial aid to Union over concerns about the academic rigor of its doctoral program and that Union had signed a compliance agreement to raise certain standards [16].