David Horrobin

Dr David Frederick Horrobin (6 October 1939 - 1 April 2003) was a medical researcher, entrepreneur, author and editor. He was a contributor to the field of essential fatty acids and an advocate of the benefits of fish oils and Evening Primrose Oil ^[1]. His research elucidated the physiology and biochemistry of the Omega EFA's^{[citation needed]}.

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Biography

David Horrobin was a scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, and during this time was influenced by the nutritionist Hugh Macdonald Sinclair. He taught for several years at Magdalen College, Oxford prior to his appointment as Professor and chairman of medical physiology at Nairobi University in 1969. Appointed as a reader in medical physiology at University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1972 and in 1975 became Professor of medicine at the Université de Montréal.

In 1977 he set up Efamol Ltd., an over-the-counter oil supplementation business, whose success enabled him in 1981 to set up the Efamol Research Institute in Nova Scotia. Following Horrobin's negotiation of the merger/acquisition of Efamol with the UK based company Agricultural Holdings in 1983, the business became an international concern of note^{[citation needed]}, and by 1997 was under the umbrella of the trading and intellectual property holding company listed as Scotia Pharmaceuticals with bases in Canada, Scotland and England^{[citation needed]}. He left the Scotia in 1997, and his successor as CEO, Robert Dow, reduced the research and development pipeline of the company, regarded by Horrobin as its primary raison d'etre^{[citation needed]}. He predicted at the time that if Dow's policies continued to be enacted, the company would be bankrupt inside three years ^[2]. His next business was Laxdale Ltd, which was set up to examine the use of essential fatty acids in treating Schizophrenia and neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's. He died before the company was well established and it too went into liquidation.^{[citation needed]}

David Horrobin founded the journals 'Medical Hypotheses' and 'Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids' presently a leading journal in the phospholipid world^{[citation needed]}. The original Editorial Board of Medical Hypotheses comprised: the double Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, the Nobel Laureate Sir Macfarlane Burnet, the philosopher Sir Karl Popper, the Nobel Laureate in physiology Sir John Eccles and the physiologist A.C. Guyton. Among others its present board includes Antonio Damasio and the Nobel Laureate Arvid Carlsson^{[citation needed]}.

Horrobin published more than 800 papers ^[3], was the inventor of 114 patents, was an ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) highly cited scientist^[4], and wrote or edited over twenty books. In 2002 his book, The Madness of Adam and Eve, outlining a theory of the coevolution of schizophrenia and modern humans, was runner-up in the Aventis Prize (now the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books)^[5] for the best science book, behind Stephen Hawking. The ideas presented in this book formed a primary inspiration for Sebastian Faulks' novel Human Traces, published 2005, and Dr. Horrobin is acknowledged in the text.

In 2001 he was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma of which he died in 2003. In June 2004 the scientific publisher Elsevier, having acquired Medical Hypotheses created an annual David Horrobin Prize, in his honour^[6], to reward outstanding medical theory.

A longtime critic of both the peer-review system^[7], and certain aspects of both the grants and drug regulatory systems in western countries, his approach to medical research earned him the epithet of "maverick" in many an editorial^{[citation needed]}. His support for Evening Primrose Oil (EPO) as a virtual panacea verged occasionally on the extreme, and led him to make claims which, with the benefit of hindsight, to some have appeared unbalanced^{[citation needed]}. However, some modern research appears to be softening this impression^[8][9].

Often cast as a thoroughgoing critic of the Medical and Scientific Establishment, and despite having hundreds of peer-reviewed papers of his own in print, Dr. Horrobin reserved his arrows most particularly for what he perceived of as the innovation-stifling influence of anonymous peer review^{[citation needed]}. He was, in the main, however, a defender of medical science, in one example penning an critique, 'Medical Hubris'^[10], of Ivan Illich's famous attack on the medical establishment, 'Medical Nemesis'.

Selected Books

• The communication systems of the body, Basic Books, New York. 214pp 1964.
• The human organism; an introduction to physiology, Basic Books, New York. 208pp 1966.
• Medical physiology and biochemistry, Edward Arnold, London. 469pp 1968.
• Principles of biological control, Medical and Technical Publishing Co., Aylesbury. 70pp 1970.
• A guide to Kenya and northern Tanzania, Medical and Technical Publishing Co., Aylesbury. 304pp 1971.
• Essential biochemistry, endocrinology and nutrition; a guide to important principles for nurses and allied professions, Putnam, New York. 118pp 1971.
• Medical Hubris: A reply to Ivan Illich. Eden Press, Montreal. 1977. ISBN 0-88831-001-3
• Treatment of diabetic neuropathy: a new approach, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh. 139pp 1992.
• Phospholipid spectrum disorder in psychiatry, Marius Press, Carnforth. 339pp 1999.
• The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity, 2001, Bantam Press, ISBN 0-593-04649-8 (Runner up for the Aventis Prize for the best science book of the year, 2002)

References

1. ^ Conference in honour of David Horrobin, described as the "foremost pioneer" in the EFA field
2. ^ Brief acknowledgement of Horrobin's 1998 warning about Dow's catastrophic policies at Scotia, in a note concerning its bankruptcy in 2001 Sunday Times 15 Jul 2001
3. ^ David Horrobin Bibliography A list of 939 publications including books and many peer-reviewed journal papers, as well as the 114 patents of which David Horrobin was the named inventor.
4. ^ ISI Webpage listing for David Horrobin with hypertexted list of 883 of his publications
5. ^ List of Prizewinners and Acclaimed Titles on Royal Society website
6. ^ Announcement of the David Horrobin Prize on the Elsevier site
7. ^ Horrobin on Peer Review
8. ^ Evening Primrose Oil shows anti-cancer properties
9. ^ A 2005 review of some of Horrobin's scientific contributions relating to EPO
10. ^ Review of "Medical Hubris" in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association