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Draft:Steve Collins (Medical Doctor)

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  • Comment: Many of the sources are his publications which are primary and not independent. Unclear how he meets the notability criteria. S0091 (talk) 17:52, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Steve Collins (born 30 April 1962), is an Ireland-based medical doctor with a doctorate in nutrition and an MBE for services to humanitarianism. He has worked in aid and development since 1985 with a focus on treating and preventing malnutrition.

Collins is the founder and chairman of Valid Nutrition, co-founder and executive director of Valid International and co-founder of Aronia Ireland Ltd.

Education and Career[edit]

Born in Southend in the UK in 1962, Collins attained his MBBS in medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London (1982 – 1989), a BSc in Philosophy and Anthropology at University College London, and an MD clinical doctorate in nutrition from the University of London in 2001. In 1985 whilst undertaking public health work during his summer holidays, he was caught up in a war in Uganda and forced to travel overland ending up in West Darfur Sudan during the great Sahelian famine (1983 - 1985)..[1].

In Sudan, he volunteered with the non-governmental agency Save the Children and worked for 9 months travelling around famine stricken villages travelling by horse to assess food needs, allocate relief foods and monitor the distribution[2]. After qualifying as a medical doctor, Collins worked for the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica and was exposed to the cutting edge research into the treatment of malnutrition that was being undertaken there at the Tropical Metabolic Research Unit (TMRU)[3].

In 1992, he returned to famine relief working in the town of Baidoa in Somalia at the epicenter of the 1992 Somalia famine where he ran the first center focusing on the treatment of severely starving adults to be set up since the second world war[4]. His work in Baidoa treating the most extreme cases of starvation ever recorded led to a redefinition of the limits of human adaptation to starvation[5]. He then developed new protocols for the dietary treatment of severe malnutrition in adults and specific tools to screen and monitor starving adults[6]and specific tools to screen and monitor starving adults and adolescents[7][8][9]. In 2001 he was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to humanitarianism[10].

Throughout the 1990s he continued to work as a medical doctor for various NGOs. His work took him to the famines and wars in South Sudan, Angola, Burundi/Rwanda/Zaire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and North Korea. In 1998, disillusioned with the problems of running inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centers to treat severe starvation[11], he developed the Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) model[12]. This new model has been praised for innovation[13]. It combined the use of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) with protocols to engage with the afflicted populations and treat cases of starvation as outpatients in the community rather than inpatients in hospitals or clinics[14][15][16]. In 1999, Collins set up Valid International to undertake the operational research to develop the model and train humanitarian workers to implement it. In 2005 he founded Valid Nutrition as a charity to pioneer the manufacture of RUTF in developing countries and to develop lower cost plant-based RUTF[17]. In 2007, CTC was adopted by the UN (World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition, and the United Nations Children's Fund) under the name of Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and it is now the gold standard intervention for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition in children[18][19][20]. It has dramatically reduced the cost and increased the numbers of children treated globally[21] and has been rolled out in over 70 countries. In recognition of this, Collins was made a Senior Ashoka Fellow in 2010 and in 2012 was awarded an honorary doctorate in science from Long Island University in the USA[22]. His work has received multiple awards for innovation[23] and been featured in several books[24][25][26] and an Irish state television (RTE) documentary.

From 2010, the global roll out of CMAM has been hindered by the high cost of RUTF[27] and Collins has more recently focused on lowering its cost, fostering the production of RUTF in developing countries and improving its efficacy[28][29]. In 2017 a large randomized controlled trial in Malawi demonstrated that plant based RUTF made from soya, maize and sorghum was as effective in the treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition in children as the standard WHO recommended milk-based gold standard recipe and more effective in the treatment of cases complicated by anemia or iron deficiency,[30] at substantially lower cost and with a large reduction in carbon emissions[31]. In 2023 the Codex adopted a standard for RUTF based on protein quality, changing the earlier stipulation that 50% of the protein should come from dairy[32][33].

Collins became an Irish national in 2020 and now lives with his wife and three childen in West Cork, running a regenerative organic farm[34][35]. Since 2020, his scientific work has focused on the prevention of chronic illness and low carbon sustainable agriculture in Ireland[36]. In 2021, he co-founded Aronia Ireland Ltd to develop and market polyphenol-rich supplements to improve metabolic health and prevent chronic illness. In 2022 the company released the PhyterBerry range of aronia supplements onto the Irish market[37]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Steve Collins Fellow Biography". Ashoka.org. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  2. ^ Russell, Sharman Apt (2006). Hunger: An Unnatural History. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-07165-4.
  3. ^ "A Conversation with Globalizer Fellow Steve Collins". Ashoka.org. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  4. ^ Collins, S. (1993). "The need for adult therapeutic care in emergency feeding programs. Lessons from Somalia". JAMA. 270 (5): 637–8. doi:10.1093/ajcn/68.1.193. PMID 8331768. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  5. ^ Collins, S. (1995). "The limit of human adaptation to starvation". Nature Medicine. 1 (8): 810–814. doi:10.1038/nm0895-810. PMID 7585185. S2CID 21504556. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  6. ^ Collins, S.; Myatt, M. & Golden, B. (1998). "Dietary treatment of severe malnutrition in adults". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 68 (1): 193–9. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2007.05.021. PMID 9665114. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  7. ^ Collins, S. (1996). "Using Middle Upper Arm Circumference to Assess Severe Adult Malnutrition During Famine". JAMA. 276 (5): 391–395. doi:10.1001/jama.1996.03540050051023. PMID 8683818. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  8. ^ Collins, S. & Myatt, M. (2000). "Short-term Prognosis in Severe Adult and Adolescent Malnutrition During Famine: Use of a Simple Prognostic Model Based on Counting Clinical Signs" (PDF). JAMA. 284 (5): 621–626. doi:10.1001/jama.284.5.621. PMID 10918712. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  9. ^ Collins, S.; Myatt, M. & Duffield, A. (2000). "Assessment of Nutritional Status of Adults in Emergency-Affected Populations" (PDF). UN Sub Committee on Nutrition RNIS Supplement. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  10. ^ "Collins helped transform nutrition in famine countries". Irish Examiner. 9 December 2010. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  11. ^ Collins, Steve (January 1998). "The Risks of Wet Feeding Programmes". Field Exchange 3: 3. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  12. ^ Collins, Steve (2001). "Short-term Prognosis in Severe Adult and Adolescent Malnutrition During Famine: Use of a Simple Prognostic Model Based on Counting Clinical Signs" (PDF). The Lancet. 358 (9280): 498–501. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(01)05630-6. PMID 11513936. S2CID 36723271. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  13. ^ Ramalingam, Ben (2023). Upshift: Turning Pressure into Performance and Crisis into Creativity (1st ed.). ASIN 000849830X.
  14. ^ Collins, Steve & Sadler, Kate (2002). "Outpatient care for severely malnourished children in emergency relief programmes: a retrospective cohort study". The Lancet. 360 (3948): 824–1830. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)11770-3. PMID 12480359. S2CID 23927746. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  15. ^ Collins, Steve; Dent, Nicky; Binns, Paul; Bahwere, Paluku; Sadler, Kate & Hallam, Alistair (2006). "Management of severe acute malnutrition in children" (PDF). The Lancet. 368 (9551): 1992–2000. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69443-9. PMID 17141707. S2CID 6034155. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  16. ^ S. Collins (2006). Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) (PDF) (Report). Valid International. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  17. ^ Anderson, Tatum (2009). "Firms target nutrition for the poor". BBC News. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  18. ^ UNICEF (2007). Community-Based Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (PDF) (Report). UNICEF. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  19. ^ Koch, Fiona (2016). "Disrupting Charity: How Social Business Can Eradicate Starvation". Forbes. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  20. ^ UNICEF (2015). The State of the World's Children 2015 (Report). UNICEF. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  21. ^ "Data Brings Treatment to Malnourished Children". Data Impacts Case Studies. 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  22. ^ "Steve Collins". Worth. 2024. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  23. ^ "Awards". Valid Nutrition. 2024. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  24. ^ Russell, Sharman Apt (2006). Hunger: An Unnatural History. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-07165-4.
  25. ^ Russel, Sharman Apt (2021). Within Our Grasp: Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It (1st ed.). Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 978-1524747244.
  26. ^ Ramalingam, Ben (2023). Upshift: Turning Pressure into Performance and Crisis into Creativity (1st ed.). ASIN 000849830X.
  27. ^ Welsh, Teresa (2021). "Community-based management of malnutrition 'a partially realized promise' 20 years on". DevEx. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  28. ^ Collins, Steve; Henry, Jeya. "Alternative RUTF formulations (Special Supplement 2)". Emergency Nutrition Online. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  29. ^ Kerac, Marko; Bunn, James; Seal, Andrew; Thindwa, Mariam; Sadler, Kate & Tomkins, Andrew (2006). "Probiotics and prebiotics for severe acute malnutrition (PRONUT study): a double-blind efficacy randomised controlled trial in Malawi". The Lancet. 374 (9684): 136–144. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60884-9. PMID 19595348. S2CID 8020012. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  30. ^ Bahwere, Pakulu; Akomo, Peter; Mwale, Mwawi; Murakami, Hitoshi; Kathumba, Sylvester; Banda, Chimwemwe; Jere, Solomon; Sadler, Kate & Collins, Steve (2006). "Soya, maize, and sorghum-based ready-to-use therapeutic food with amino acid is as efficacious as the standard milk and peanut paste-based formulation for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition in children: a noninferiority individually randomized controlled efficacy clinical trial in Malawi". American Journal of Nutrition. 106 (4): 1100–1112. doi:10.3945/ajcn.117.156653. PMID 28814393. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  31. ^ Liang Zhao & Alison Fleet (2023). Future of Next Generation Formula (Report). UNICEF. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  32. ^ Welsh, Teresa (2021). "Despite pressure, WHO review keeps status quo malnutrition treatment". DevEx. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  33. ^ Technical Specifications forReady-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) (PDF) (Report). Goal Global. 2023. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  34. ^ Wheeler, Sam (2018). "From famine-stricken war zones to farming pedigree Dexter cattle in West Cork". Irish Examiner. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  35. ^ Allen, Caroline (2023). "Cork couple cuts back Dexter herd to focus on aronia berries". Agirland. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  36. ^ Mick Kelly (1 January 2024). "Farming, famine and fighting hunger". Food Done Right (Podcast). Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
  37. ^ "About". Aronia. 2024. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
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