Our History
Established in 1983, BSEM has been at the forefront of research into ecological medicine for 40 years.
1962
Dr Theron Randolph in the USA publishes Human Ecology and Susceptibility to the Chemical Environment, the first ever description of sensitivity to chemicals.
1968
Apollo 8 mission takes the first pictures of Earth from space (which forms part of our former logo, see home page), showing that we live on a small planet that we have to look after.
1976
Dr Richard Mackarness publishes Not All In The Mind, the first UK book to describe food intolerances and how to rid yourself of them.
1978
Dr Ronald Finn, one of our founders, publishes Food Allergy - Fact or Fiction? in the Lancet - the first ever double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge trial, proving that food intolerances could cause a variety of symptoms.
1979
The Clinical Ecology Group of 19 doctors starts meeting in London to discuss allergy and environmental factors in illness, later formalising the group as British Society for Clinical Ecology and around 1983 as British Society for Allergy and Environmental Medicine.
1983
The British Society for Nutritional Medicine is founded to promote the use and understanding of nutrition within the context of clinical medicine.
As the two societies evolved it became clear that the aims of the societies overlapped. In 1993 the societies merged to form the British Society for Allergy, Environmental and Nutritional Medicine, publisher of the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.
1995
The society publishes the report Effective Allergy Practice
1998
Society members publish Environmental Medicine in Clinical Practice, the first and still the only textbook in this field
1999
The society publishes Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Recognition and Management
2005
The society’s name is changed to British Society for Ecological Medicine to reflect the wider aims of the society in addressing all of the many environmental factors that affect modern medicine.