In the 1980s, Horrobin sold primrose oil in the United States without legally demonstrating its safety and efficacy,[3] leading to government confiscations and felony indictments of his associates.
[6][7] During Horrobin's tenure as chief executive, Scotia Pharmaceuticals obtained licences for several drugs based on evening primrose oil, but these licenses were withdrawn for lack of efficacy.
Obituaries noted his contributions to the biotechnology industry, intellectual acumen, original thinking and adventurousness, while some criticised his promotion of primrose oil and other questionable claims.
[citation needed] At Magdalen, he was strongly influenced by the nutritionist Hugh Macdonald Sinclair and his hypotheses on essential fatty acids and degenerative disease.
[citation needed] Following participation in the Flying Doctor Service in east Africa, Horrobin was appointed as professor and chairman of medical physiology at Nairobi University in Kenya.
[9] To raise money for his research,[16] Horrobin left academia and in 1977 established a company called Efamol to sell evening primrose oil (EPO) as a proposed treatment for various ailments.
In a report on the incident published by the consumer information organisation Quackwatch, Barrett also questions Horrobin's research ethics: "Would someone that contemptuous of the law have any qualms about faking data?
[7] Research published after Horrobin's death indicates that fatty acids are no more effective than a placebo against eczema;[20] Scotia's medicines licences for evening primrose oil drugs was withdrawn.
[6] As the supplement sales generated revenue, Horrobin's company began work on numerous drugs, most of them containing evening primrose oil.
[25] Investors worried that Horrobin had spread the company and its resources too thinly, a state described by The Guardian as "woolly, sprawling and lacking in focus".
[17] They also questioned Horrobin's judgement in promoting his wife to research manager of the company despite her lack of scientific or business training;[26] her highest qualification was a BA in English and women's studies.
[17] Investors were restive about Horrobin's emphasis on products related to evening primrose oil, which they considered a "hippy" project,[17] "outmoded and of questionable scientific validity".
[25] When it was found that borage contained a higher percentage of gamma-linolenic acid than did the evening primrose, rival companies had begun to take market share of the supplement.
Horrobin responded to the borage competition by accusing his rivals of "duping women, selling pigs in pokes and marketing 'unstable and potentially toxic products'."
[27] The Council ruled that Jamal had committed "serious professional misconduct for falsifying his results", manipulating the supposed randomisation of the clinical trial conducted over a decade earlier.
Scotia was faulted by industry observers for what was called a "highly unusual" compensation scheme, as it had offered the doctor a portion of profits from future sales,[26] although the Council suggested that Jamal was prompted to commit fraud by his "belief" in the efficacy of the drug and not by his desire for financial gain.
[30] Following his departure from Scotia, Horrobin set up a new company, Laxdale Ltd, to examine the use of omega-3 essential fatty acids in treating schizophrenia and neurodegenerative diseases.
He considered research with animal models of human disease to be a waste of resources,[35] and believed that large-scale clinical trials were unnecessary and unethical.
Horrobin founded and edited the non-peer reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses to provide an outlet for unorthodox ideas and research that would not be evaluated by other scientists before publication.
[14] In the popular science book The Madness of Adam and Eve (2001), Horrobin outlined his hypothesis that schizophrenia contributed to the evolution of modern humans.
[41] Horrobin suggested that the "genes for schizophrenia are responsible for most of the religious sense, most of the technical and artistic creativity and most of the leadership qualities of modern human beings".
[45] The book was compared unfavorably to similar works by Kay Redfield Jamison, who examines a possible link between bipolar disorder and artistic creativity.
[9] A number of obituaries were published, both in medical journals such as The Lancet[47] and Horrobin's Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids,[12] and in the popular press.
[5][12][13][14][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] The obituary described Horrobin as "effortlessly prolific" and "one of the most persuasive people on earth", but also criticised him as excessively promoting evening primrose oil despite a lack of scientific evidence, noting that some critics questioned his ethics.
[57] Kelliher was founder and at the time chief executive of Equazen, a company marketing fish and evening primrose oils including a formulation called eye q, said to improve scholastic ability in children.