In Memoriam: Dr. Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D.

November 14, 1932 - October 16, 2022

Fred Alden Baughman, Jr. passed away peacefully on October 16, 2022 in the warmth and comfort of his home in El Cajon, CA. He was just days shy of his ninetieth birthday.

Born in El Centro, CA on November 14, 1932 to devoted parents Irma Herpel Baughman and Fred A. Baughman, Sr. Fred Jr. was raised along with his brother Thomas William Baughman, seven years his junior, in Flushing, Queens, New York. When Fred was eleven years old, he spent a summer on the farm of family friends outside Elizabeth City, NC exploring wildlife and wide-open spaces with his childhood best friend Billy Reid.

Right out of the blocks, Fred loved sports. Swimming, football, basketball, diving, tennis, and eventually wrestling. In his sophomore year at Bayside High School, he was one of 8 finalists in the citywide high school diving championships. He was on track to earn a swimming scholarship to college and a tryout as a diver for a coveted spot on the 1952 U.S. Olympic Team.

In 1949, at 17 years old, as he was entering his senior year, Fred was stricken by polio along with thousands of other Americans. His weight plummeted from 120 to 82 lbs. For weeks following the diagnosis, his parents had no idea whether Fred would ever walk again.

Initially admitted for treatment to Queens General Hospital, Fred was under quarantine for weeks, relieved only by family visits from behind large plate-glass windows. Thanks to the laser-focused devotion of both his parents, Fred was admitted for treatment at the New York State Rehabilitation Hospital at Haverstraw, an hour north of NYC.

His entire family sacrificed for Fred’s recovery, with his father taking over as Director of the Long Island March of Dimes and quadrupling the donations needed to fight what had become a nationwide scourge.

Six months after arriving in a wheel chair, Fred left Haverstraw on two crutches and with two goals for his life: shed the crutches for canes and give back to others anyway he could.

After brief stints at Lafayette College and University of Cincinnati, Fred graduated from NYU with a degree in Physical Rehabilitation Sciences.

An athlete to his core, Fred picked up college wrestling seven years after losing the ability to run. Incredibly, he represented Manhattan’s Mcburney YMCA at the 1956 YMCA National Championships, placing fourth in the 114pound class. In his third year at NYU Medical School, Fred met — and married — the love of his life, Annette Isadora Sutherland, a ravenhaired beauty, a recent Barbadian immigrant and x-ray technician.

In one of his frequent letters to his parents, Fred described this lifechanging meeting by writing “I am proud of her, more proud and happy than I dared ever hope I’d be.”

He earned his Doctor of Medicine in Adult and Pediatric Neurology in 1960, and was later certified by the Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and named a Fellow of the Academy of Neurology.

In 1965, he and Annette moved their young family to East Grand Rapids, MI where for the next six years Fred would be the only private practice neurologist in Western Michigan, directed the Grand Rapids Neuromuscular Clinic, and served on the Board of the Michigan March of Dimes.

In 1975, after one too many sub-zero winters in Michigan, Fred relocated his practice to El Cajon Valley Hospital in San Diego’s East County, serving as Chief of Staff in 1982, and expanding his practice to include Grossmont and Alvarado Hospitals. Over his career, Fred diagnosed and discovered real diseases including in 1970, being one of the first doctors in the country to dispel the discriminatory medical myth that the XXY genotype was a scientific mark of criminality.

Two years later, he uncovered CHANDS disease, (“Curly Hair-ankyloblepharon-nail Dysplasia Syndrome”) which was associated with delayed motor development.

As a pediatric neurologist, Fred dedicated his career to healing and protecting children. He fought against childhood illiteracy, serving on the Board of the National Right To Read Foundation, an organization devoted to the principle that “Literacy Is A Civil Right.” In 2006, Fred wrote and published the groundbreaking book, “The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes Patients Out of Normal Children”. For this he won the Upton Sinclair Award, presented by the New York University School of Medicine for exposing Big Pharma’s illicit efforts to medicate children “without providing parents the information or support needed to achieve informed consent.”

Time and again, Fred raised his voice for the defenseless and testified against the indiscriminate medicating of children in front of numerous state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the Mexican Congress, and the Parliament of Western Australia, and appeared on television and movies including, PBS Newshour, Frontline, and numerous documentaries.

Fred and Annette loved traveling the world, including for the 50th anniversary, a train tour across East Africa from the back of their own private railway car. They sailed down the Nile and cherished their drives through the American southwest and cross-country rides in the viewing cars on Amtrak. They enjoyed Australia, Europe, Mexico and of course the islands of the Caribbean.

Fred played doubles at his beloved Singing Hills Tennis Club in El Cajon until he was 75. “The Club” was for 30 years the social epicenter of some of the family’s strongest and longest lasting friendships that survive to this day. Through the past two decades, Fred came to count on the consistent love and support of his younger brother Thomas, who made frequent cross country visits every year, nephew Robert Macgeoch who would extend any trip to include a visit to Fred and Annette, loving niece Sara Sutherland and her late husband Paul, and ever-devoted sister-inlaw Gloria Callender whose nearly-daily phone calls kept Fred apprised of family happenings. Not to mention the unwavering friendships and true caring and concern of lifelong friends, June and Dr. Joe Green, Judy and Jack Roach, Sue Easely Buck and husband Bill, Ariana Pina, Alan Ferguson and Julie Tibbetts, Cole Borgerding, and Mark Sweeten, compassionate caregivers, and dozens of others who never stopped writing and calling to let Fred know he and Annette were in their thoughts.

Fred was an inspiration. He defined polio, rather than the other way around. He never missed a day of work, nor spoke ill of polio’s impact on his life, only what it had inspired him to achieve. In a letter to his parents from his NYU dorm in 1955, he wrote: “Medicine is my purpose and my heritage. That I have been given the experiences — polio and all of the little battles that loomed temporarily insurmountable is but part of the sum of my molding. I hope Mom and Dad that you know, I recognize everyday that these small successes would have been all-impossible without your love and guidance.”

Annette and Fred were married 62 years. Annette pre-deceased Fred this past February. Fred is survived by his younger loving Brother Thomas W. Baughman and his wife Debi, of Virginia, three children, John, Lisa, and Duane, three grandchildren and dozens of nieces and nephews from across America, London and Barbados.

A celebration of the inspirational lives of both Fred and Annette is planned. —————————————————

In lieu of flowers please consider charitable donations to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research (https://give.michaeljfox.org) or the Alzheimer’s Association (https://www.alz.org/)