Pfeiffer Treatment Center

The Pfeiffer Treatment Center is a U.S. clinic devoted to orthomolecular psychiatry and medical research particularly pertaining to autism and pyroluria, and the neurobiology of criminal behavior.

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About the Center

The Pfeiffer Treatment Center - Human Research Institute is located in Warrenville, Illinois, and says it is dedicated to two main purposes — affording patients in need of it access to treatment as suggested by an orthomolecular understanding of psychiatry, and engaging in medical research. Its focus in research has mainly been on the bio-neurological causes of violence and delinquency and autism.

Named in honor of Carl Pfeiffer, a pharmacologist and physician who contributed to orthomolecular medicine, the center is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3),^[1] and has a fund that helps make its therapies available to the indigent.^[2] A further endeavor is training physicians overseas.^[3] Robert deVito, M.D., a part-time consultant at Pfeiffer, was chairman of the department of psychiatry at Loyola University Chicago's medical school.^[4]

The Center claims an 85% success rate for treating ADHD, autism, and schizophrenia, but other scientists say their methods have not been rigorously tested and compare them to "snake oil".^[5]

Chief scientist William J. Walsh recently made headlines by saying that Ludwig van Beethoven died of lead poisoning, although the tests "came back somewhat short of definitive".^[6]

Publications

• Yao Y, Walsh W, McGinnis W, Praticò D (2006). "Altered vascular phenotype in autism: correlation with oxidative stress". Arch Neurol 63 (8): 1161-4. PMID 16908745.
• William J. Walsh, Anjum Usman, and Jeffrey Tarpey. "Disordered Metal Metabolism in a Large Autism Population". Presented at American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 2001.