Answers to the Health Charges

Ellen White has been very influential in the practice and philosophy of healthful living in Seventh-day  Adventism. The following links address the charges concerning the subject of health in Mrs. White’s writings and personal life:

Ellen White and Vegetarianism: These lecture notes by Roger W. Coon address the charge that Ellen White was a hypocrite for urging Seventh-day Adventists to be vegetarians and secretly eating meat herself.

“Ellen White and Vegetarianism: Did She Practice What She Preached?” By Roger W. Coon: This pamphlet covers the same territory as Coon’s above lecture. There are a few subtle differences, though.

“The Development of Adventist Thinking on Clean and Unclean Meats” by Ron Graybill: This article provides the historical background for Ellen White’s request in an 1882 letter that her daughter-in-law get “a few cans of good oysters.” Also, you will find helpful information on the general subject of clean and unclean meats in Adventist history.

“Visions or Seizures: Was Ellen White the Victim of Epilepsy?” by Donald I. Peterson, MD: This booklet provides helpful answers to the many charges on the Internet concerning this issue.

“Was Ellen G. White an epileptic?” by Warren H. Johns and the results of the 1984  Ellen G. White Health Committee’s investigation into the charge that Ellen White had temporal-lobe epilepsy: Ministry, August 1984: 24-25. This committee was composed of eight professors in the Loma Linda University Schools of Medicine and Nursing and a psychiatrist from Northern California (one member was not a Seventh-day Adventist).