Founding Chairman and President Emeritus
(September 23, 1904 – October 25, 1988)
A doctor of medicine by profession, a scholar and scientist by aptitude, educator at heart and administrator perforce, a biochemist and nutritionist by choice. His involvement in nutrition started with Bataan Experiment, proving that rice enrichment by thiamine and other nutrients including iron can solve beri-beri, then a leading cause of death in the Philippines. This experiment was considered a world classic in Public Health Nutrition and served as a model for rice enrichment programs in other countries. In the Philippines, it led to the passage of the Rice Enrichment Law in 1952.
By 1950, Dr. Salcedo has a number of scientific papers cited in reviews and textbooks of biochemistry, health and nutrition. The late President Elpidio Quirino made him Secretary of Health (1950-1953); President Diosdado Macapagal appointed him as Chairman of the National Science Development Board, now Department of Science and Technology, (1962-1965), a position he continued to hold under President Ferdinand E. Marcos (1966-1970). Throughout his years in government service, Dr. Salcedo remained the most “unpolitical and uncontroversial” public figure.
From government service, Dr. Salcedo returned to medical education and was Dean of the University of the East Medical College and later President of the Araneta University Foundation. He also founded the Nutrition Foundation of the Philippines in 1960 and was Chairman of the Board of Trustees until his death in 1988.
Dr. Salcedo was given the highest Presidential awards to a Filipino Citizen, the 1966 Republic Cultural Heritage Award in Science and the 1969 Presidential Pro Patria Award, and in 1978, the title of National Scientist. Also in 1969, he was named “Scientist Par Excellence and Scholar Meritissimus” by the International Academy of Leadership. Since 1952, he earned a place in the International Yearbook and Statemen’s WHO’s WHO and the World’s WHO’s WHO. He was the first Filipino nutritionist who gained the international recognition and awards such as; the William J. Gies Fellow in Biochemistry, Columbia University; President of the 5th World Health Organization Assembly; First Vice-Chairman, UNICEF Conference on Children and Youth in National Planning and Development; Chairman of Commission III in Asia; member of the FAO-WHO Expert Committee on Nutrition, the Pacific Science Council, the International Advisory Committee on Research, National Science Program of UNESCO, First Board of Advisers, East West Center, and the New York Academy of Science; as Fellow and Honorary Member of the American Institute of Nutrition.