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Joel L. Swerdlow is an American author, editor, journalist, researcher, and educator. His works include To Heal a Nation: The Story of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, co-authored with Jan Scruggs, which became a 1988 NBC movie. His articles have been published in American newspapers and magazines, and international publications have translated his work into more than three dozen languages for international publication. For ten years, he worked as a Senior Writer and Assistant Editor of National Geographic Magazine, and was the lead writer for the Magazine's 1998–1999 Millennium series.
Swerdlow's medical and science writing began as a writer for U.S. News and World Report books, He contributed, for example, to Blood: The River of Life, which was part of The Human Body series. He is coauthor of The Bug Stops Here: Force Protection and Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of National Defense University in Washington, D.C. For the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation he wrote "Special Reports" on rural infant care, at-risk adolescents, and other topics related to the provision of health care, such as the 1986 report, "Four-year effort cuts infant deaths in isolated rural counties by medical school-public health linkages."

His academic articles and presentations include "A New Approach to Combating Infectious diseases," and "Lessons from Malaria," which argues that "malaria offers important lessons in the relationship between plants and human disease because two of the three broad categories of drugs that modern medicine now uses to treat and prevent malaria come from plants."
For his 2000 book, "Nature's Medicine: Plants That Heal," Swerdlow spent five years traveling around the world, including Madagascar and India, to study plant-based medicine. With two siblings who were "Western-trained doctors," he reported that he started out his journeys as a "believer in Western, science-based medicine."
However, he is now convinced that there are non-Western approaches to medicine that must be taken seriously, to add to our arsenal of healing strategies. "I am not talking about herbal remedies," he said. But, "What I think we can do is invent a new kind of medicine." "Two-thirds of the world uses plant-based medicines because they simply don't have any choice." He believes Western medicine must consider drugs that have multiple active ingredients akin to the complex healing powers we find in the world of plants. "Opening up a plant and trying to find the part that heals is like opening up a radio and finding the part that makes the sound."
In a National Geographic News online release, Swerdlow described some ways that medicine is beginning to appreciate a new multi-faceted approach, along with an appreciation for the "billion years of evolution" that have produced today's plants and their healing properties:
In more than one billion years of evolution, plants have developed countless chemicals that help them ward off microbes such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi. These chemical combinations also give the plants protection from insects and herbivores.
"Most drugs have only one active ingredient," said Swerdlow commenting on current Western drug research focused on medicines that contain simple chemical compounds.
Swerdlow points out that some science-based medicines, such as the drug cocktail used to treat AIDS and a combination of chemotherapy drugs used to fight cancer, are using multiple active ingredient treatments.
Nature provides the most powerful cure-all drug, said Swerdlow. It has been scientifically proven to lower risks of heart disease, reduce chances of developing cancer, and prevent strokes (the three leading causes of death in the United States) all without side effects. This miracle drug is simply eating fruits and vegetables every day.
(Wikipedia)