Alfredo Bowman

Alfredo Darrington Bowman (26 November 1933 – 6 August 2016),

Although he used the title and name Dr. Sebi, Bowman had not completed any formal medical training. He was considered a quack by licensed doctors, attorneys, and consumer protection agencies in the US. He was arrested and accused by New York state of practicing medicine without a license. After trial, Bowman was acquitted based on the legal definition of "medicine" for his herbs. He was later charged in a civil suit that resulted in him being prohibited from making therapeutic claims for his supplements.

In May 2016, Bowman was arrested in Honduras for money laundering, after being found carrying tens of thousands of dollars in cash with insufficient accounting for its origin. During several weeks' detention in jail, he contracted pneumonia. He died in police custody as he was being transported to a hospital.

Early life Bowman was born in 1933 in Ilanga, Honduras.

Bowman became frustrated with Western medical practices in treating his own illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, impotency and visual impairment and visited an herbalist in Mexico named Alfredo Cortez who confirmed to him that he was dying.

Career Bowman began his own healing practice in Honduras soon after. 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.

In the 1980s, Bowman established a treatment center near La Ceiba, Honduras, and marketed his herbal products in the US. He named his center the USHA Research Institute, as located in the village of Usha.

According to McGill University, Bowman's diet and food therapy was based on the discredited alkaline diet and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics. His beliefs on the origin of disease denied germ theory and factored in faux-afrocentric claims about the unique genetic characteristics of Africans and their diaspora, which was referred to as "race pseudoscience" in a critical article published by McGill University.

He gradually earned considerable revenue, more than $3,000 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.

In an effort to stop Bowman's false claims, the New York Assistant Attorney General for consumer fraud filed a civil suit against Bowman, his Ogun Herbal Research Institute, and other named businesses. It resulted in a consent agreement by which he was prohibited from making therapeutic claims for his products. He was also fined $900. The suit had ruled that the claims were unsubstantiated.

Michael Jackson In 2004, Bowman reportedly treated Michael Jackson prior to his being tried on counts of child abuse.

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. Raymone Bain, a publicist of Jackson, denied that her client received any "professional treatment" or that he had any painkiller addiction. The case was dismissed in 2015 for lack of prosecution.

Arrest for money laundering 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. The length of his time in custody and the poor condition of the jail may have contributed to his death.

Legacy In 2018, African-American rapper Nipsey Hussle stated he was planning on creating a documentary about Bowman. Hussle was later murdered in 2019 by an acquaintance. Law enforcement have found no link between Hussle's death and Bowman.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar mentions Dr. Sebi in the lyrics to the song "Worldwide Steppers" from his 2022 album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.