Neal D. Barnard

Neal D. Barnard is an American non-practicing psychiatrist, author, clinical researcher, and founding president of the vegan and animal rights activist group, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

He grew up in a cattle-ranching family in North Dakota, started to explore vegetarianism in medical school at George Washington University School of Medicine, and later became a vegan.

As part of his vegan ethics, he came to oppose animal testing in biomedical research and he founded PCRM in 1985 out of his apartment in New York City to lobby against animal testing and to lobby for changes to USDA nutrition guidelines. By 2006 PCRM had a $7.2 million budget and 70 employees in a Washington D.C. office. PCRM and Barnard have maintained close connections with PETA; Barnard wrote a regular column for PETA's magazine.

As of 2004 he was not practicing medicine, had an adjunct clinical research position at GWU Medical School, was president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, and was running PCRM.

By 2006 he had become well-known as a vegan advocate and an activist against animal testing, and had testified before Congress.

He appeared in the 2011 documentary feature film Forks Over Knives, a film that traces the careers of T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell Esselstyn.

He founded the Barnard Medical Center in 2015 as part of PCRM, and it opened in 2016 with him as president; the center provides primary care and emphasizes diet and preventative medicine.

By 2017 Barnard had been an author on around 70 scientific papers and had written 18 books about nutrition, including the Dr. Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes and 21-Day Kickstart and Power Foods for the Brain.