Joe Collier (clinical pharmacologist)

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Joe Collier
ACE
  • Whistleblower for medical schools admissions (1986-1988)
  • Editor of Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin
  • National policy work and drug pricing
    • SpouseRohan
    Scientific career
    FieldsClinical pharmacology
    WebsiteOfficial website

    Joseph Gavin Collier

    NHS
    , and ensured that members of governmental advisory committees published their conflicts of interest.

    In 1986 he became a

    whistleblower when he revealed to the Commission for Racial Equality
    that software used for medical-school admissions selection at St George's was intentionally discriminating against women and ethnic minorities, by creating a lower score for women and those with non-European names so reducing their chance of being called for interview. Initially shunned within the institution, he was publicly thanked several years later for bringing the procedure to its attention. His work led to reviews of admissions policy to institutes of higher education throughout the UK.

    He was editor of the

    Medicines Commission
    from 1998.

    Early life and education

    Joseph Gavin Collier[1] was born to pharmacologist Henry Oswald Jackson Collier and actress Patience Collier. They also had two daughters, who later became the textile designers Sarah Campbell and Susan Collier.[2][3]

    After attending Cambridge, Collier gained admission to St George's Medical School in London to study medicine in 1964 and graduated in 1968.[1] He gained a MD in 1975.[1]

    Career

    Collier's career at St George's continued until his retirement in 2007.

    Sir Patrick Vallance,[8][9] and Emma Baker.[10]

    Research

    Royal College of Surgeons of England, where Collier did his early research

    He interspersed his junior medical training with two days a week at a laboratory situated in the

    therapeutic doses of aspirin reduced prostaglandin E and F in human semen.[15][16]

    His early research included looking at the veins of the back of the hand,[17] and the behaviour of human peripheral blood vessels, being first to develop methods for studying how human veins respond to drugs and natural mediators in vivo and developed the idea that human veins and arterioles have very different pharmacologies. Through this work he classified vasoactive drugs as veno-selective, arteriolar-selective or non-selective, and that depending on their selectivity they would have different effects in disease.[18][19][20]

    He later looked at the role of

    angiotensin converting enzyme in controlling blood vessel tone. In 1987, he set out with Patrick Vallance to investigate whether human blood vessels demonstrated endothelium-dependent relaxation, a term coined in 1980 by Robert F. Furchgott and John V. Zawadzki after discovering that a large blood vessel would not relax when its single-layered inner most lining was removed. They subsequently showed that the occurrence was mediated by what they called endothelium-derived relaxing factor, later found to be nitric oxide, and it was subsequently shown to occur in a variety of animals. Using veins from the back of a human hand, Collier and his team reproduced Furchgott and Zawadzki's findings.[9] They then demonstrated that the human arterial vasculature is actively dilated by a continuous release of nitric oxide.[21] In 1996, Vallance presented his and Collier's findings at the Goulstonian Lecture of the Royal College of Physicians, where he gave details of the connection between nitric oxide and blood pressure.[22]

    Commission for Racial Equality

    Collier became a

    whistleblower in 1986 when, following his report published jointly with psychiatrist A. W. Burke, he informed the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) that software used for medical-school admissions selection at St George's had been developed to intentionally discriminate against women and ethnic minorities, by mimicking methods of previous admissions officers.[23][24] It was creating a lower score for women and those with non-European (Asian, African and Arabic) names so reducing their chance of being called for interview.[25][26][27]

    Collier's findings led to an enquiry, both internal by St. George's and external by the CRE, and a subsequent report was published entitled Medical School Admissions: Report of a formal investigation into St. George's Hospital Medical School (1988). Like Collier and Burke, the report also raised the question of what might be happening in other London medical schools; St. George's already had a higher than average intake of students with non-European names.[24][28] Collier was initially shunned within the institution and denied a due professorship. As attitudes changed, his position improved; he was promoted to professor and eventually the medical school publicly thanked him.[25][24][29] He discussed his experience in an article in the

    British Medical Journal in 1999 when he recalled that he "was ostracised, became invisible, told I [he] had brought the organisation into disrepute”.[29][30] Changes in admissions procedures to institutes of higher education have since been made throughout the UK and Collier has since been acknowledged for contributing towards greater equality in recruitment practices.[29][31]

    National policy

    In his national policy work, he raised awareness of how drugs are priced, brought to the market and regulated, in addition to how they are evaluated, licensed and promoted, and how drug safety advice is produced and revised.[7] He has spoken of the "excesses of industry", despite several general practitioners finding the pharmaceutical educational material they received as useful.[32]

    In 1993, he was appointed lead adviser on medicines to Parliament's

    NHS should be in accordance with their clinical value.[33] In addition, he worked to ensure that members of governmental advisory committees published their conflicts of interest.[34][35]

    Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin

    Collier began working for the

    National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).[7][36][37]

    Drug safety

    In 1985, he complained to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry that of 28 drug advertisements in the November 1985 issue of the British Medical Journal, 11 were in breach of the Medicines Act of 1968.[38]

    Known to frequently question evidence and arguments accepted by others, under his editorship in 1998, the DTB opposed the Department of Health's view and supported the provision of sildenafil on the NHS.[7]

    He later suggested that people should contribute to treatment agreements by signing their own prescriptions.[39]

    With regards to off-label prescribing of drugs for children, Collier argued that “the validity of such an approach is questionable because there are such great differences between adults and children, and even between children of different ages, with regard for instance to the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic responses to drugs, […], and the effects of drugs on normal growth and development”.[40]

    Other roles

    Collier is a

    Medicines Commission.[5][7]

    Personal and family

    In 1965, Collier met French philosophy student, Rohan.

    blogger and fluent in French.[5][10]

    Awards and honours

    In 2002, a walnut sculpture by Elona Bennett of several hands, including Collier's, was unveiled at St. George's. Titled "Handing on Skills, Ideas and Ideals", his hands feature alongside those of other people, including Edward Jenner and John Hunter.[42]

    Selected publications

    Papers

    Books

    References

    1. ^
      ISBN 978-1-86067-394-8
      .
    2. ^ Levy, Paul (30 June 2011). "Susan Collier: Award-winning textile designer best known for her work for Liberty and Habitat". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
    3. PMC 1986965
      .
    4. ^
      ISBN 978-085484-118-9
      .
    5. ^
      S2CID 54395292
      .
    6. ^ "History — Welcome to the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Unit". St George's, University of London. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
    7. ^
      S2CID 220171305
      – via BMJ Publishing Group.
    8. S2CID 5081180
      .(subscription required)
    9. ^
      PMID 10637204
      .
    10. ^ a b Collier, Joe. "The Joe Collier Blog". The Joe Collier Blog. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
    11. ISBN 1-58234-386-1
      .
    12. PMID 16402117
      .
    13. ISBN 978-3-642-67507-2
      .
    14. S2CID 4298944
      .
    15. PMID 1089972
      .
    16. ISBN 978-1-84816-826-8
      .
    17. PMID 7833218
      .
    18. PMC 1401728
      .
    19. ISBN 978-3-642-69526-1
      .
    20. PMID 7213525
      .
    21. PMID 10336566
      .
    22. PMID 9192338
      .
    23. ISBN 978-0-907920-94-6
      .
    24. ^
      PMID 3128356
      .
    25. ^
      S2CID 6830670
      .
    26. ISBN 978-1-138-72873-8
      .
    27. ^ Morrison, Lionel (24 February 1988). "CRE investigation finds discrimination in medical school admissions". Commission for Racial Equality (Press release). London.
    28. ISBN 978-0-907920-94-6
      .
    29. ^
      PMC 1115062
      .
    30. PMID 10066235
      .
    31. PMID 11581340
      .
    32. ^ Sullivan, Thomas (11 February 2009). "Royal College of Physicians: UK Report on Industry Relationships". www.policymed.com. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
    33. ISBN 978-0-215-03796-1
      .
    34. PMID 2556539
      .
    35. PMID 2862524
      .
    36. ISBN 1-860160891
      .
    37. ^ Lyall, Joanna (15 March 2016). "Andrew Herxheimer (1925–2016)". The Pharmaceutical Journal. Archived from the original on 1 April 2021.
    38. ^ Lesser, Frank (2 May 1985). New Scientist. Reed Business Information. p. 8.
    39. PMID 10066223
      .
    40. PMID 19277709
      .
    41. ISBN 978-1-905006-68-7
      .
    42. PMID 12468475
      .

    Further reading

    External links
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