Alfred Vogel

Alfred Max Vogel (October 26, 1902 – October 1, 1996) was a Swiss herbalist, naturopath and writer.

Alfred Max Vogel was born in 1902 in Aesch, Basel, Switzerland.

At the age of 21, he moved to Basel to manage a health store.

In 1927, he married Sophie Sommer; together they had two daughters.

In 1929, he started publishing a monthly magazine, Das Neue Leben ("The New Life").

In the 1930s, Vogel relocated to Teufen in Appenzell.

Vogel was an avid traveller and enjoyed visiting new countries and meeting new cultures.

He was especially interested in meeting indigenous peoples in a close relationship with nature.

From 1941, this became A. Vogel Gesundheits-Nachrichten ("A. Vogel Health News").

From the 1950s onward, he travelled extensively through Africa, North America, Oceania, and South America.

On one of his travels he met and stayed with the Sioux in the United States.

The story goes that he befriended Ben Black Elk, son of medicine man Nicholas Black Elk, who Vogel says, taught him about the Native American herbal tradition.

According to some sources, however, Vogel received an honorary doctorate (doctor honoris causa) in botanical studies in 1952 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), allowing the styling Dr. h.c. Vogel.

Jan Willem Nienhuys claimed that he obtained his honorary degree from California University of Liberal Physicians (CULP) situated in Los Angeles, an institute that was dissolved long ago and whose legitimacy of its diplomas is disputed.

Because he was not a physician, but did sell 'natural medicines', the title Doctor or Dr. Vogel implied an invalid association.

However, Ben Black Elk was known to be merely earning his bread as an actor by having taken pictures of him with tourists near Mount Rushmore for money, also starring in the 1962 film How the West Was Won.

Upon Vogel's departure, Ben Black Elk allegedly gave him a farewell present: a handful of seeds of Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower).

Back in Switzerland, Vogel began cultivating and researching the plant, eventually creating Echinaforce, which would become his flagship product.

In 1963, Vogel established Bioforce AG in Roggwil in Thurgau, Switzerland.

Being a member of Jehovah's Witnesses, Vogel preached that God prohibited blood transfusions.

After a complaint in 1981 at the Dutch Advertising Standards Authority (Dutch: Reclame Code Commissie), he and his products were gradually no longer called Doctor.

On October 14, 1982, Dutch teacher, presenter and comedian Ivo de Wijs published an article in the science section of NRC Handelsblad on this matter, in which he branded Vogel a quack.

Vogel was criticized for justifying his opposition to blood transfusions by claiming that they could lead to a change in character in older editions of Der kleine Doktor (published in English as "The Nature Doctor").

He died in 1996 in Feusisberg at the age of 93.

The New Zealand-based bakery and cereal company Vogel's is named after him.

For years, Alfred Vogel was falsely known as Doctor Vogel or Dr. Vogel.

During a November 2014 episode of the satirical television show Zondag met Lubach, Vogel's "invention" of Echinaforce was criticised and mocked.