John Jacob Cannell, M.D. (born June 21, 1948, Washington, D.C.) is an American activist, most notably taking a stand on the Vitamin D deficiency epidemic. In the past, he contributed to such areas of public debate as Black Lung legislation, and the problems with educational testing. In recent years, Dr. Cannell has taken an active role in educating the public about the health benefits of Vitamin D. He is the founder of the Vitamin D Council.
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Cannell is the son of the late imagist poet Skipwith Cannell. In 1972, he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a degree in Zoology. He attended medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and graduated in 1976.[1] He is a member of the American Medical Association, and became a board-certified Psychiatrist in 1993.
In 1988, Dr. Cannell's work on anti-smoking was noticed by the New York Times.[2] Cannell was airing anti-smoking commercials on local television featuring a woman dying of emphysema, hiring teenage workers to distribute anti-smoking material, and even turning away patients who smoked from his rural clinic in Flat Top, WV. Dr. Cannell eventually gave up the battle as it was discovered that coalminers smoked to qualify for the Black Lung Benefits Act.[3]
Cannell formed the nonprofit Friends for Education, in 1986 which began a grassroots organization to reform the public education system. Noticing how filthy the local schools were, Friends for Education began a "Dirtiest Public School in West Virginia Contest," the winner of which would get $100.00 worth of mops, brooms, and soap from Friends for Education. School officials were outraged, but the mops came out of the closet and the schools seemed to get cleaner.[4]
Friends for Education also filed sexual discrimination complaints against the West Virginia State Department of Education, claiming women held 80% of the low paying teaching jobs, but men held 80% of the higher paying administrative positions. They had filed similar complaints in Raleigh County just 18 months earlier.[5]
In 1988, Cannell set out to find out the rankings of poverty-stricken states, such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky—interestingly, they were all "above the national average." This reminded Cannell of "Lake Woebegone," Garrison Keillor's mythical Minnesota town where "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." Cannell collected test results from all 50 states—which, of course, were all "above the national average" and got the attention of the national press including the New York Times, NBC Television and the Wall Street Journal.[6][7][8]
As of 1999 and with even more recent studies, U.S. states still report being "above the national average".[9][10]
In 2003, he recruited professional colleagues, friends, and family for a board of directors and took the steps necessary to incorporate The Vitamin D Council as a tax exempt, nonprofit, 501(c)(e) corporation. Dr Cannell is currently the executive director of the Vitamin D Council. He is the author of two recent theories concerning vitamin D. The first is on vitamin D and influenza and the second on vitamin D and autism.[11]