Brabant was born in 1955 in Willesden,[2] in the London borough of Brent, and raised in and around the large town of Ipswich in Suffolk in the East of England.

Previously, BBC News had bought all material from their contract freelance journalists, in whatever form: written; sound recorded; television media; editorial.

[8] Brabant led the orchestrated opposition,[8] which resulted in him and other freelance journalists being allowed to sell the non-required pieces to other news organisations.

As part of our occasional innovation series, special correspondent Malcolm Brabant traveled to the inventor's island home.

"[10] Quickly after the broadcast, at the PBS NewsHour page streaming the episode, scores of viewers left comments harshly critical of the segment's journalistic integrity and alleged lack of scientific sophistication.

At the end of the 28 December 2016 episode, Sreenivasan made a statement on the situation, saying, “the NewsHour acknowledges that our reporting of this segment should have been more skeptical….We are examining each step in our process, and we apologize to our audience for the lapses in this report.” Further controversy ensued as some commenters accused NewsHour of "censoring" the segment and practicing "blackout tactics" to squelch "divergent science.

[17] An adverse reaction led to three psychotic episodes, during which Brabant spent more than three months in the intensive care units of psychiatric hospitals in three countries.

In 2015 Brabant wrote a book entitled Malcolm is a Little Unwell about his illness and the profound effect it had on his career and family life.