Fellow

Malcolm Law is Professor of Epidemiology & Preventative Medicine, Barts & the London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry and is one of Britain’s most distinguished epidemiologists. He has an international reputation and his opinion is widely sought in matters relating to the prevention of chronic disease, particularly cardiovascular disease and cancer. He and his colleagues were among the first in the world to recognise the importance of using observational and clinical trial evidence in tandem, to calculate reliable quantitative estimates of the effect of an agent in changing the incidence of a disease. Perhaps his most important early contribution to epidemiology and public health arose from three papers that he, with colleagues, published in the BMJ in 1991. These showed clearly that salt intake at any level in Western societies was associated, without threshold, with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and that the evidence from observational studies on the size of the effect matched that from clinical trials of salt reduction. Equally seminal work followed, clarifying the relationship between serum cholesterol and disease (this work allayed the concern that serum cholesterol reduction was a cause of cancer and suicide), and showing that environmental tobacco smoke is a cause of coronary heart disease. This and subsequent work established quantitatively the efficacy and safety of drugs and dietary change on major coronary risk factors, and in turn of changing the risk factors on risk of heart disease and stroke. His work on salt, cholesterol, helping people to stop smoking and environmental tobacco smoke all formed the basis of government recommendations, public education and policy. More recently he has been a co-investigator developing the Polypill concept in the prevention of cardiovascular disease calculating quantitative estimates of benefit arising from the different components separately and together. This principal of combining several ingredients to achieve maximum effect is of course the principal on which we elect a diverse range of fellows and we welcome Malcolm Law.