Randolph, Theron G.

Theron Grant Randolph, MD, founded the Human Ecology Study Group, later the Human Ecology Research Foundation. His research and practice focused on the effects of foods, chemicals, and environmental factors on human health.

Theron G. Randolph, (1906-1995), was an early allergy specialist and one of the founders of the Clinical Ecology movement. Randolph graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1933, where he remained, first as a Resident and then as an Instructor in internal medicine, until 1937. From 1937-1939 Randolph worked with Dr. Francis Minot Rackemann as a Research Fellow in Allergy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. After his fellowship he returned to the Midwest, founding and then running the Allergy Clinic at Milwaukee Children's Hospital for three years, before returning to the University of Michigan Medical School as Chief of the Allergy Clinic (1942-1944).

In 1944 Randolph moved to Chicago to establish his private practice, and became an Instructor in Internal Medicine at Northwestern University Medical School, and a staff member at Wesley Memorial Hospital. Randolph became sub-certified in Allergy in 1945. While at Northwestern, Randolph's medical focus continued to emphasize individual allergic response and diverged from the mass-applicable allergic diagnostics by means of IgE response that became mainstream allergy. His research interest was in food allergy, especially targeting allergies to common foods such as corn which were not widely thought to be allergenic.

Randolph's research in food allergies led him to be regarded as a specialist in this area. In 1949 he testified before the FDA advocating detailed ingredients listings for prepared foods (the "Bread Hearings"). In 1950 Randolph's appointment at Northwestern was not renewed. He went on to publish Food Allergy, co-written with Herbert J. Rinkel and Michael Zeller in 1951.

By the early 1950s Randolph had become interested in chemical susceptibility, but his findings were not well received, particularly within the Chicago medical community. One of the primary areas of disagreement centered on the definition of allergy as immunologically mediated, whereas chemical susceptibility is not. No longer a part of the medical research community at Northwestern, Randolph was cut off from research funds. The Rockwell M. Kempton Medical Fund (renamed the Human Ecology Research Foundation in 1960) was established to help provide funds for Randolph's research. In 1954 Randolph married for a second time, to Janet Mitchell (Tudy), who had been one of his early chemically susceptible patients.

In 1956 Randolph set up the first Comprehensive Environmental Control Unit (CECU) at the St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, IL, though it would move several times before finally closing in 1984 due to increasing difficulties with insurance coverage. In 1962 the synthesis of Randolph's work to date was published in book form, as Human Ecology and Susceptibility to the Chemical Environment. The remainder of Randolph's career was spent applying the ideas it contained clinically, and publicizing them through professional organizations and teaching at various CME courses. He retired from practice in 1993.