Everywhere in the world, we can observe and be touched by acts of kindness. People from all walks of life, faiths, and cultures extend themselves beyond the call of duty to help others unconditionally. Through their noble deeds, humanity as a whole is elevated.

To commend virtuous actions and encourage more people to be inspired by their examples, Supreme Master Ching Hai has lovingly created a series of awards, including the Shining World Leadership Award, Shining World Compassion Award, Shining World Hero and Heroine Awards, Shining World Honesty Award, Shining World Protection Award, Shining World Intelligence Award, and Shining World Inventor Award, to recognize some of the most exemplary, generous, caring, and courageous people who walk amongst us.

As one of the United States most sought-after health experts for reversing the condition of diabetes, Dr. Neal Barnard is renowned for his bestselling book about a landmark program that stabilizes blood sugar levels without medication. Dr. Barnard is also the president and founder of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a unique non-profit organization that promotes preventive medicine and ethical research, such as by using alternatives to animal and human testing. These have been the two main objectives steadfastly pursued by the highly respected group since its founding in 1985 till today, with an impressive list of achievements along the way.

PCRM is supported by some of the nation’s most renowned healthcare professionals, with an illustrious advisory board including “The China Study” author and nutritionist Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of The Cleveland Clinic. Conscientious celebrities, media personalities, and top athletes collaborate with PCRM on various projects.

PCRM is doing amazing work in the world, and it’s a blend of helping animals and making people aware that there is no reason to have animals suffer any more to test them, and in addition to letting the world know that we don’t need to eat animals any more in order to nourish our bodies.

So really, them getting this logical, simple message out to people is something that I like to support.

The year before I went to medical school, I had a job in a hospital helping out at autopsies. And one day, we had a person who died in the hospital of a massive heart attack. And we pulled the ribs off the front of the chest to examine the heart which was filled with atherosclerosis, that’s the blockages in the arteries. At the end of the exam, I put the ribs back in the chest and sewed up the skin.

And I went up to the cafeteria and they were serving ribs for lunch that day. And I couldn’t eat it and it looked just like the body. And as time went on, I started to break away from my meat eating past. And also, when I was in medical school, I saw animals being used in experiments that were not very kind. I started to be concerned about these things.

I felt that in American medicine, we do a good job of diagnosing illnesses, and sometimes we do a good job of treating it, but we don’t do very well when it comes to preventing illness. And I wanted to get involved there. I wanted doctors to be advocates. And happily we’ve grown now and we have many doctors speaking with one voice.

To lay the groundwork for what healthy eating means, PCRM conducts research studies on patients with common conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol, etc., and offers to show them how to start a low-fat vegan diet.

And then we test the medical effects and we present it to scientific conferences and we present our results in medical journals as well.

Unlike any other organization, the evidence for a plant- based diet is backed up with sound science, and I just love that, because we have scientists and doctors that are proving that, it’s not just compassionate, but it also is healthy.

With a firm groundwork in research, PCRM presents engaging and versatile educational programs that have reached tens of thousands of people.

Always a pioneer, in 1991 PCRM also created “The New Four Food Groups,” an innovative proposal for a national nutrition policy that is cholesterol-free and low in fat. The four food groups are fruits, legumes, whole grains, and vegetables. As PCRM explained, “regular consumption of [animal] foods – even in lower quantities – poses serious health risks…”

To me, it’s a group that – it’s doctors telling you what to do. It’s about being healthy. What is happening to our country, where 1 out of 3 children are obese, they have early heart disease?

When you get physicians who understand anatomy better than any of us do, and they come together and say, “Hang on a second, this isn't working,” we have to listen.

At the forefront of PCRM’s vital work is the active role of Dr. Neal Barnard. He gave a recorded series of lectures for the PCRM Cancer Project.

He has authored many practical books for patients and their families, including his most recent one titled “21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health.”

At the outset of the deadly H1N1 swine flu pandemic, he was one of the few outspoken experts to raise awareness that the origin of the disease was concentrated pig farming. One of PCRM’s creative ads was shown in Washington, DC, where the group is based.

We also are very active in politics. So for example, if there may be a law in Congress that would improve the healthful meals in schools, we work very hard for that kind of thing. And on the other hand, there are subsidies for unhealthy products and we oppose those kinds of things. We’ve been very busy promoting alternatives to animal research.

The PCRM Legislative Fund, headed by its Director of Public Affairs and vegan Mrs. Elizabeth Kucinich, has succeeded in many campaigns working directly with US legislators.

During a recent fundraising event for the PCRM, Supreme Master Ching Hai, who had been invited by Ms. Kucinich to attend, was unable to come and sent a representative, while also contributing a US$50,000 donation for furthering the good work.

I would like to say thank you so much for your generosity, your vision for working for animals, the environment, for humanity, and for supporting the PCRM Legislative Fund. We really thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I would just like to say thank you so much for really being an inspiration to so many people and for your support of the work that we are doing. It’s a long road ahead and I am delighted that we are working together.

We have a number of successes where medical schools are stopping using animals for teaching; trauma labs, same story – but we mustn’t delude ourselves. People in America eat a million animals per hour, today. Around the world, the figure is much higher than that. And animals are being abused in laboratories. And people themselves are paying a price and their children are paying a price, where one in three American children is overweight now.

One in three is going to develop diabetes. One in two boys is going to develop cancer at some point in his life, one in three girls. These are terrible statistics. And the only way to start to tackle that is to help people to see what’s on their plate and to understand that a simple change there can make a very profound change in their body and for their family.

We’re seeing dramatic changes. In 1991, Colin Campbell, Denis Burkitt, who discovered really the health value in fiber in the diet, Oliver Alabaster who was a cancer researcher, and I held a press conference, saying that meat and dairy products are not necessary in the diet. They’re just options and frankly you’re better off without them. And what you really need are vegetables, fruits, grains, and whole, and beans.

When we said that, it was considered a scandalous. Well, I want to tell you that in 2007, the American Medical Association, the very same one that said it was dangerous actually passed a resolution saying, this is actually a good idea, that children should be served non-diary vegetarian meals, vegan meals in schools. So, people can change.

I think what will happen, at least what I hope will happen, is that we’ll do a shift. We’ll be doing what Hippocrates and all the other medical pioneers, from centuries and centuries ago, always said, is, “Let food be your medicine.” (Great.) And we have to start there. If we look after ourselves and follow a really healthful diet, we’ll have many doctors with time on their hands, and that’s what I’m looking for.

For the continuous and devoted efforts of Dr. Neal Barnard and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine over more than 25 years, Supreme Master Ching Hai honored Dr. Barnard and the organization with the Shining World Compassion Award. “Dear Doctor Barnard, It is with great pleasure and gratitude that we present to you the “Shining World Compassion Award.” This Award is presented in recognition of your life’s passion to heal the planet, and for your selfless spirit of service to others. Your enlightened leadership, richly endowed with noble loving qualities, has and is, making an enormous positive difference to our world.

Compassionately responding to the needs of humanity, you promote the low-fat vegan diet as a means to reclaim health. Originally trained as a psychiatrist, you quickly changed focus to research the impact of diet on human health, and towards finding alternatives to the use of animals in industry. PCRM, which you started in 1985, is revolutionary in its ideals for preventive medicine, the cessation of animal use, and its objective to encourage ethical research.

In 1991, you founded The Cancer Project to educate the public on diet’s role in cancer prevention and survival, by providing nutrition and cooking classes for cancer sufferers. You’ve authored over a dozen books about nutrition that have collectively sold over two million copies. Countless people have been restored to perfect health without medication due to your research and published works. Doctor, you are the living embodiment of the Hippocratic Oath: noble, moral, virtuous and of exemplary repute.

Thank you for uplifting our world with your inspirational example of love in action. For your outstanding lifetime achievements in public health promotion, for your vision, wisdom, creativity and benevolence, and for being a dedicated and compassionate role model, we hereby applaud and celebrate the great saintly deeds of Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President and Founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. With Great Honor, Love and Blessings, Supreme Master Ching Hai” That’s for you.

Well, thank you very much. I’m not sure that I deserved those very kind words, but I am very, very grateful to her for expressing that.

In addition to the award, Supreme Master Ching Hai’s lecture DVDs, music CDs, her #1 international bestselling book, “The Birds in My Life,” and an organic tea set were also gifted to Dr. Barnard.

I’m very grateful for all that Supreme Master has done, because in so many ways, reaching people through education, and sometimes through what’s on their plate, directly giving them a taste of how this world really can be so much better than it is today, and giving people knowledge and hope, I think that’s a wonderful gift, and I’m very grateful for that.

Our deep gratitude, Dr. Neal Barnard and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine for your courageous endeavors in presenting life-saving truth about health and compassion to the public and the government. May all your efforts be blessed by Heaven to continue to succeed.

Smart viewers, thank you for your company on this program. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. May you and your family be healthy and happy.

For more information on Dr. Neal Barnard and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, please visit and
Dr. Neal Barnard’s books, including “21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health,” “The Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook” and more… are available at and

I’m Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet!