Alfredo Bowman

Bowman was born in 1933 in Ilanga, Honduras, and was of African descent. He first learned of herbal healing and related traditional practices from his grandmother. His grandfather was an immigrant from Haiti.[7] As an adult, Bowman identified as an "African in Honduras", not as an African Honduran.[2]

He claimed to have become dissatisfied with Western medical practices in treating his own asthma, diabetes, and impotency. He visited an herbalist in Mexico[8] whom Bowman claimed healed him.[2]

After that, Bowman began his own healing practice in Honduras. He developed a treatment that he called the "African Bio-Electric Cell Food Therapy," and claimed that it could cure a wide range of diseases, including cancer and AIDS, as well as a variety of chronic conditions and mental illnesses. He also developed related herbal products.[2] Bowman set up a center in the 1980s near La Ceiba, Honduras, and marketed his herbal products in the United States. He called his center the USHA Research Institute, located in the village of Usha. Bowman relocated to New York City in that decade, where he encountered legal opposition to his medical and therapeutic claims. He said his supplements could cure AIDS. He relocated his center to California.[2]

According to McGill University, Bowman's diet and food therapy was based on the discredited alkaline diet.[9] His beliefs on the origin of disease denied germ theory and factored in faux-afrocentric[10][11] claims about the unique genetic characteristics of Africans and their diaspora.[2][12]

He gradually earned considerable revenue, more than $3000 a day, after giving advice and developing a wide range of celebrity clients, such as Lisa Lopes, Steven Seagal, John Travolta, Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson.[1] He reportedly treated Jackson before he went to trial in 2004 on charges of child abuse (of which he was acquitted).[2]

In the early 1980s, AIDS had newly been recognized as a disease as an epidemic started in the United States, with numerous cases in New York and other major cities. Bowman claimed that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and used herbal remedies to treat people.[13]

In 1987, Bowman was arrested and charged in New York with practicing medicine without a license. The jury acquitted him, saying the state had failed to prove he made a medical diagnosis. In the 1990s, he was sued in New York for making claims of therapeutic benefits for his products; as a result of the civil case, he was prohibited from making such claims. He relocated to Los Angeles, where he cultivated celebrities among his clients.

On 28 May 2016, Bowman and his associate Pablo Medina Gamboa were arrested on charges of money laundering at the Juan Manuel Gálvez de Roatan Airport, after they were found to be carrying $37,000 in cash and had no explanation for it. They were attempting to transfer from a commercial flight from the United States to a private plane for another destination in Honduras.[1]

Bowman was released pending a court hearing on 6 June 2016, but he was re-arrested by the Public Ministerio on money laundering charges.[1] He was held for several weeks in a Honduran prison, while his family was attempting to obtain his release. He fell ill and, after police officials realized the severity of his condition, they transported him to a hospital. Bowman died of complications of pneumonia on 6 August 2016, en route to Hospital D'Antoni.[14][15][16] The length of his time in custody and the poor condition of the jail may have contributed to his death.[14]

Some of his followers question the circumstances of his arrest and death. They claim that there was a conspiracy to silence him because his teachings differed from the medical establishment and threatened the pharmaceutical industry.[14][15][16]

In 2004, Bowman reportedly treated Michael Jackson prior to his being tried on counts of child abuse.[2] Bowman claimed to have helped the singer overcome addiction to painkillers Demerol and morphine with his African Bio-Electric Cell Food Therapy. He worked with Jackson for six months at a retreat in Aspen, Colorado.[22]

After Jackson's brother Randy paid Bowman $10,000, Bowman sued Michael Jackson for related costs, claiming that the singer owed him $380,000, and seeking an additional $600,000 in lost revenue for having deferred other clients and various speaking engagements.[2][23] Raymone Bain, a publicist of Jackson, denied that her client received any "professional treatment" or that he had any painkiller addiction.[24] The case was dismissed in 2015 for lack of prosecution.[22][25]