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Interview of Dr. Jonathan Wright by Ralph Zuranski

Ralph Zuranski: “Dr. Wright, could you introduce yourself?”

Jonathan Wright, MD: to “Hi, I am Jonathan Wright. I grew up in Ohio and from there went to Harvard University and then the University of Michigan Medical School.”

Jonathan Wright, MD: “My folks tell me that I was telling them I wanted to be a doctor since I was eight years old…at least that is the first they heard of it.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Where did you go to medical school and complete your residency?” 

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “I made it through college and medical school. I wanted to be family doc so after that I went off into a residency, as it’s called after medical school, into family medicine and that was in Seattle.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How did you get involved in alternative medicine?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “Well, I was about done with that residency and I ran into a couple of folks that had problems. They just were not getting better with all the conventional means. One of those ladies, brought in a book and said “It says right here that vitamin E will get rid of my problem.”

Ralph Zuranski: “It is pretty amazing you were open to listening to suggestions from your patients.”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “She tried every single drug she could think of. In fact, one of them was making her ears ring and barely controlling her symptoms. So, I asked her why she was asking me about vitamin E when she could just go down to the health food store and buy the stuff. She said,  “I want to make sure that vitamin E won’t kill me, because it’s a fat soluble vitamin and those government agencies are telling us we are going to kill ourselves with fat soluble vitamins”.

Ralph Zuranski: “What was your perspective on vitamins at that time?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “I told her one thing I knew about vitamin E was that it never killed anybody. That is about all they told us in medical school.”  She said, ‘Thank you!’ Then she went off and got her vitamin E.”

Ralph: “did you ever hear back from the patient that told you about vitamin E?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “Well, she called back about six weeks later and said she was all better and she had the problem for 7, 8 or 9 years. She also flushed all her medication down the toilet.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How did you feel when she told you about her beneficial results?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “I thought that was kind of interesting because remember, the University of Michigan Medical School told us all about drugs, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. They only gave us one hour on vitamins and minerals.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did doctors think that was kind of strange to only receive only one hour of training on vitamins and minerals?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.:  “We did not even think about it. Doctors followed their training without question in those days.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Well, what did you do when the drugs didn’t work on the patients?” 

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “The next time somebody came in and had a problem that hadn’t been handled by the various drugs and so forth, that we had all been educated in, at least we thought we were,  I didn’t have any answer for it.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How, did you finally become educated bout vitamins and minerals?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “I thought, ‘Gee, why don’t I get a copy of that book that had the vitamin E in it.’ I did and it said Vitamin B6 would do the job, so I passed that along to the person I was working with. ‘Dog gone, if Vitamin B6 did not do the job!”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you at that time realize there was a problem with your education?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “Oh, I figured there was a problem with my education. I got the book and fortunately, there were all the footnotes at the bottom where they got the information. For those who are interested that was Adelle Davis’ book. Some of you may remember Adelle Davis.”

Ralph Zuranski: “I do remember Adele Davis.  Her book was the first book on nutrition that I read. I think I was about 13 years old when I have the opportunity to find it at the bookstore. Did you look for information in the other places?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “I took off and went to the medical library. I found that there was all kinds of information right in the medical library that nobody had ever bothered to teach us about.”

Ralph Zuranski: “When did you really get interested in vitamins and mineral research?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “That was about 1972. At that time, I started collecting photo-copied articles from medical journals, scientific journals, chemical journals, agriculture journals and any kind of journals that had to do with human physiology, including information about diet, vitamins, minerals, natural hormones, biochemistry, botanicals and all that. I started collecting those articles, putting them in file cabinets; cross-referencing them and yes, I also read them.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did that material become the foundation of your exhaustive database on health, vitamins, minerals, hormones, cancer, AIDS, heart disease, strokes, and other topics?

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “Yes, that started my database. I collected all the scientific literature that focused on what is now called Alternative Medicine and eventually will be called Real Medicine.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Were you one of the first people to start studying natural healing methods?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “I think I was the very first one that started into a very extensive collection. It started in 1972. I kept that going through the 70’s and was joined in that effort in 1978 by Dr. Allen Gabbie, MD. The two of us have now put together a collection of photo- copied things from medical journals that runs to 40,000 or 50,000 articles."

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you in Dr. Gabby read all those articles?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “Either Dr. Gabbie or myself have read the information. We put a title on them. They we either published it or filed it away. We have used that information as a large part of the basis of what we do in our medical practices. We can look up diabetes, what does vitamin B3 do, or we can go the other way and look up what vitamin A is good for in this file.”

Ralph Zuranski: “When did you decide to go into practice on your own?”

Jonathan Wright, M.D.: “We collected enough data and by 1973, I thought we could do a whole lot for medical care without using all the drugs and chemotherapy and so forth. Therefore, I left the clinic where I was and started the Tacoma Clinic in 1973 and here it is the year 2004 and its still going.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How many people work at your clinic today?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “There is a fairly large number of practitioners, nurses and technicians. Also, there’s a laboratory and a dispensary. All together we have about 80 folks working on site…trying to help folks get better and prevent disease.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How long did Dr. Gabbie work with you?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “After I collected all that information, Dr. Allen Gabbie joined me in 1978. He stayed with us until 1981. Then, he  moved back east. By the way, we are in Seattle in a little town called Renton, Washington.”

Ralph Zuranski: “When did you start teaching courses to other doctors and health professionals?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “We started teaching a course. I think we called it Clinical Applications of Nutritional Biochemistry in 1983. We taught that course 13 or 14 times between 1983 and the present. The first time we had 65 doctors attend. They thought we knew something. We were happy!”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you continue to do seminars?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “Yes, we put it on again. Then, we continued to collect all the information available from the literature and compiled it into different databases. For diabetes you can do this and you can use Vitamin C this way and so forth.

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “The last time the course was taught was in 1998. We had 460 doctors there all wanting to learn about the nutritional medicine. Without bragging too much, that course, has been the number one course teaching doctors how to do this in the field.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you write any books during this time?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “Dr. Gabie and I have some books out. In 1976, I got a call from Prevention Magazine and I started writing a monthly health column for them. I continued from 1976 to 1986. From 1986 to 1996, I wrote a health column for Let’s Live magazine.”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “In addition for working with folks in the office, one of the things I have tried to do was get the information out there, both in the courses Dr. Gabbie gave and in books and magazine articles.  We wanted to make the information available for anybody who wants to read them and prevent disease and for their families and them selves.”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “I started writing for them in 1976 and I think by the time I got finished with those magazines I had written about 250 articles or so, one a month.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did any of your books become best sellers?”

About 1979, I wrote a book called Book of Nutritional Therapy and I think, I am not sure, but I think it was the first very big seller in its’ field. By the time it ran its course, it sold nearly 500,000 copies. We followed that up in 1984 with another one called A Guide To Healing With Nutrition and that sold another couple of hundred thousand copies.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Do you think it is important to educate the public?”

Yes, we are just trying to get the information out in addition to working with folks one at a time, one by one in my clinic.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you come up with any new programs?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “Yes, in the 1970’s, I had read enough of this medical literature that I was able to put together a treatment for kids with asthma. It is an alternative medicine therapy program that is still the mainstay for a kids with asthma.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How effective was your asthma program?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “In fact, if a child with wheezing comes into my office or into another office of a doctor who does vitamins and mineral therapy, and we apply this treatment, about half those kids don’t have a wheezing problem anymore in a month. About another 30% or more have a major improvement.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How long ago was that?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “That was in the 1970’s. You may not have heard of this, and that is a little bit sad. Many drugs are given to kids with asthma. More and more kids are dying of asthma every year.”

Ralph Zuranski: “What was the basis of the therapy?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “This treatment is so simple. It does not cure the allergies, but it takes the wheezing away. That is what people die from.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Do people need to take other precautions?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “People still have to pay attention to their allergies and not eat the wrong foods. However, the treatment that takes the wheezing away, and I had to piece it together from this article and that article, had to do with vitamin B12.

Ralph Zuranski: “Did the Vitamin B12 injections make the difference?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “Yes, to this day, if we give a little one a Vitamin B12 injection, they experience many benefits. Yes, it is an injection and that’s a little hard on the kids. It does not work too well if we do not inject it. If they swallow the B12, it sometimes works and sometimes does not.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How often do they have to get the injections?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “If we give them an injection every day for about a month, then ½ the kids aren’t wheezing anymore. Then we can just taper down.

Ralph Zuranski: “What happens to the other half of the kids?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “With the other half, there is still some wheezing, but, another 30% are much, much better. Maybe another 20% are not affected too much.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Why isn’t this treatment used more often?”

Jonathan Wright M.D.: “This treatment would make big in roads with the little ones we have with asthma, if we could just spread the word. Maybe you can tell someone that has a child with asthma.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Have you worked much with hormones?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “In the early 80’s, I had a woman come into my office. She said she wanted a prescription for some hormones. She was going through menopause. So, I got out the prescription pad and started to write the prescription. I guess luckily she could read upside down because she looked over and said ‘But, I want natural hormones.’ This was 1982. I said, Well at the University of Michigan they told me these are natural. This is Premarin and it comes from horses and horses are natural.” 

Jonathan Wright M.D: “She pointed out something that I should have noticed. She said ‘I’m not a horse! I want hormones for people!!! Those hormones over there are for horses and you know horses are this big and they have four legs and everything.’”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “I said, Well, I hadn’t thought of that, but your right. These are not exactly the same hormones women have in their bodies prior to menopause. She said, ‘I want some of the natural ones.’”

Ralph Zuranski: “Wow, she sounded like she really knew what she wanted.”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “I am probably paraphrasing her. She was probably more polite. I told her they were not available because big drug companies did not want to make them. They were not patentable and therefore not profitable.  We could not get them anywhere. She was an awfully confident lady and she got up and said, ‘I’m sure you can find them and I’ll be back in 2 or 3 months.’”

Ralph Zuranski: “Where did you finally find some.”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “I worked with a compounding pharmacist. We were able to get the formulation together. That is where the first prescription of Triple Estrogen came from. That formula is now available in 2000 compounding pharmacies in the United States. The woman that did not want to be a horse or did not want horse hormones in any form was responsible for this breakthrough.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Does that mean you are trying to provide natural sources for all your hormone supplementation?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “Since that time I have been prescribing the hormones that are identical to natural. We are calling them Bio-identical Hormones.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Are you responsible for creating natural hormone supplements?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “I cannot say I invented it. All I did was copy what is in women’s bodies. So, I can say I was the first good copycat.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Is it difficult to create natural hormone supplements?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “Incidentally, natural medicine is not all that hard. All we have to do is observe exactly the way our bodies work bio-chemically and bio-energetically. We need to follow the way we fit in with nature. There are many things out there, in nature, that folks can use beneficially. All we have to do is copy that original blue print as closely as we can.”

Ralph Zuranski: “What do you see is the primary problem with conventional medical educations?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “The whole problem with the way I was educated, if you can call it that, is that most of the doctors learned all about anatomy and physiology and bio-chemistry. When it comes to doing something, we learn to give drugs that have never been found in human bodies before.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How did you work through this problem?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “What I’ve tried to do since 1972 is to work with things that belong in the body. We try to give the body what it is accustomed to…the essential nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, natural hormones and botanicals. We only use the drugs we absolutely have to when there isn’t any better alternative.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Were you one of the first to write articles about the benefits of DHEA?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “In 1982, in one of the articles in one of the books I wrote, I think I was the first to put out there the idea of the use of DHEA. I certainly did not make up DHEA. Remember, it is in all our bodies. I also did not do the basic research. It was done by the universities.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Were you the first to use bio-identical estrogens?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “As for putting it into general everyday practice, well that was a good year 1982. We created a process to produce bio-identical estrogens. We created DHEA in a natural form.

Ralph Zuranski: “Was there anyone else working in the same field?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “I’m sure you all know that Dr. John Lee, at the same time, was working on natural Progesterone. He had a program that studied and produced identical natural estrogen, progesterone and DHEA. Also, they created a natural testosterone that we have been working with at our clinic, the Tacoma Clinic, since 1982.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you write any books on hormones?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “A long about 1997, it seemed about time to write a book on that subject. With co-author, Mr. Morgan Thaylor, we wrote a book called Natural Hormone Replacement for Women Over 45. I am happy to say that some 200,000 copies have been sold. We have made that information available so that people can be better informed about not taking horse hormones or synthetic hormones, or other things that don’t belong in the body.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did you write any books on testosterone?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “We followed up on that book with Dr. Leonard. We wrote a book on testosterone replacement as well as the vitamins and minerals and botanicals everyone can use. That one came out in 1999. It has not quite sold 200,000 copies yet. That’s probably not important, but getting the information out is.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did work with people who were in danger of death from super microbes created by the overuse of antibiotics?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “Yes, another thing that occurred in our practice in the mid-1980’s had to do with a child, probably four or five years old. Her parents brought her in because of multiple kidney infections. She was told at her local university hospitals they were running out of anti-biotics that were effective. They told the parents she would probably be going into kidney failure and needed a kidney transplant.”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “When her parents brought her in they wondered if there was anything that could be done with natural medicine. Fortunately, the mom had kept a big scrapbook of all the things her daughter had to go through, including all the doctors she had seen. She had all the reports on the infections. They all turned out to be the most common bladder infections caused by the bacteria called E-Coli.”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “That is not the same as the E-Coli, called OH-157, we all hear about these days. It gets into meat and contaminates it. Unfortunately, food processing is not quite clean enough. People eat that contaminated meat and end up in the hospital with kidney failure and they die.”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “That is a mutant E-Coli. I am talking about the ‘normal’ E-Coli that lives in all mammals and people. It is found in the intestines and helps to digest food and make vitamins and other things. Basically, it’s called one of the normal internal micro-flora that we are all told by research scientists that we couldn’t exist without. they probably could not exist without us either, so we all get along.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Do these E-Coli migrate to other places in the body, outside of the intestines?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “Yes, these E-Coli, as women unfortunately know more than men, have a bad habit of crawling around in the wrong place and creating infections. It is that kind of E-Coli…not the absolutely deadly ones that infected this little girl.”

Ralph Zuranski: “How did you overcome the infection?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “She had so many infections of this E-Coli it was very difficult. What we did was find a simple sugar called Demanos.”

This simple sugar has the very fortunate effect of attaching itself to the E-Coli bacteria like Teflon. The bacteria can no longer stick to the walls of the bladder or the urinary tract. Each time the person urinates, the bacteria are excreted.  

Ralph Zuranski: “Is it an antibiotic?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “It is not an anti-biotic. It does not kill the bacteria. It just makes it simply impossible for them to stick in the bladder.”

Ralph Zuranski: “What impact does Demanos have on the cells?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “It is also a simple sugar that is not metabolized by our bodies. It is extremely safe. No one ever was hurt with this stuff. A little bit is metabolized, less than 5%. 95% or more just gets into the system. It circulates in the blood stream and is eliminated through the kidneys. If there happens to be any E-Coli in there, it just rinses it away.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Was the treatment totally effective?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “This little girl was five at the time. Now, she’ is nearly 20. She started taking quantities of Demanos. Remember, it is a sugar and tastes good. Can you imagine that a medicine that works and actually tastes good?”

Ralph Zuranski: “How was the sugar administered?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “The mom just stirred it into her daughter’s water every 3 or 4 hours. She had to do that all day. But, from that time until now, and that was 1985 or 1986, she has had only one bladder infection. That was the time they went on vacation and forgot to take the Demanos with them.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did the Demanos work for your other patients?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “We have used that therapy at the clinic now for many years. Even though it is not in all those scientific papers, I told you about for this particular use. Since it has worked well for over ten years, I thought I could tell people about it even though there wasn’t scientific references I like to have when I tell people about therapies that work.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Is Demanos available in most stores?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “Yes, now you can find Demanos in most natural food stores and many of the compounding pharmacies. Since this E-Coli causes more that 90% of all bladder infections, we actually need only 1/10^th or less the number of antibiotics that are currently being used for urinary tract infections. You can actually get by with a simple sugar.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Are there other natural solutions to many of the health problems people suffer from?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “The reason I brought this up is to illustrate that there are a whole lot of things we can use in nature that solve problems which still aren’t being solved.”

Ralph Zuranski: “Wasn’t your clinic raided by the FDA in the early part of the 1990’s.”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “Let’s do a little politics. Sometimes that is fun! Well, in 1992 we were having an average day at the Tacoma Clinic. Just before we were about to unlock our doors for the day, there was a ‘big ole banging on the doors’ and somebody kicked in the front doors.

Ralph Zuranski: “Wasn’t that kind of frightening?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “They came running in through the side doors and the back door. These fellows were holding guns and were yelling “Raid! Raid! Raid!” And, it wasn’t an insecticide commercial! It was like one of those cop’s episodes!”

Ralph Zuranski: “What did your staff do?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “You know that would have been funny except those were real guns! I am a 2^nd amendment supporter so I’m happy that most of them had them pointed towards the ceiling. But, they did point one at our receptionist and said, ‘Hands up!!!’ So she put her hands up and said, ‘If you want an appointment, you don’t have to come in with a gun.’”

Ralph Zuranski: “Did the agents threaten you and your employees?”

Jonathan Wright M.D: “They told her to shut up! Actually, if it hadn’t been for real and gotten everybody’s adrenaline going, it would have been funny. They had a search warrant and we read the warrant.”

Ralph Zuranski: “What were the