Biography
As a child he was unsure what he wanted to do, but then, according to The Independent in 2008, he "... met a friend of the family when I was about 12 who said, if you're a lawyer you spend your life making people unhappy, and if you're a doctor you spend your life trying to make people happy."
Before going to medical school he worked for a year as a volunteer in Kirkby, Liverpool, getting children to paint old people's houses and doing their shopping. According to Coleman, "The unions threatened to strike, as they were taking away work, but ... work that they weren't doing anyway ..."
Coleman qualified as a doctor in 1970 and has worked both in hospitals and as a GP. He is still registered and licensed to practice as a GP principal. He has founded and organised many campaigns concerning iatrogenesis, drug addictions and the abuse of animals and has given evidence to committees at the House of Commons and the House of Lords on vivisection. Dr Coleman's campaigns have often proved successful. For example, after a 15 year campaign (which started in 1973) he eventually persuaded the British Government to introduce stricter controls governing the prescribing of benzodiazepine tranquillisers. 'Dr Vernon Coleman's articles, to which I refer with approval, raised concern about these important matters,' said Edwina Currie, Parliamentary Secretary for health in the House of Commons in 1988.
Read more about this topic: Vernon Coleman
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