# Vernon Coleman

Vernon Coleman (born 18 May 1946) is an English conspiracy theorist, anti-vaccination activist, AIDS denialist, blogger and novelist who writes and self-publishes on topics related to human health, politics and animal rights. He is a former columnist for the Daily Star, The Sun and The People newspapers.

## Quotes

* I suppose I try and write in blood a lot of the time. I suppose a lot of it is violent in that if I get angry about something, I don't try to hide it.
* [Editors had asked him to tone down his columns] I shout at them. They shout at me. I resign and stamp my feet. I'm terrible — probably the most difficult columnist in Britain to deal with.
** "Doctoring the Books", The Independent (16 March 1999), p. 14
* [From full-page advertisements placed by Coleman for his book Oil Apocalypse] This isn't a script for a horror movie [...] The lorry that collects your rubbish won't be running. Streetlights won't burn. Hospitals will have to close . . . There won't be any more television programmes. You won't be able to charge your mobile telephone. Within a generation, five out of six people on the planet will be dead. I'll repeat, five out of six people on the planet will be dead.
* You must prepare yourself for a different world. A world in which the rich ride horses, the middle classes use bicycles and the poor walk. If you are planning for the long-term - and in this scenario, five years is long-term - don't buy a house that relies on you having petrol for your car. You want a house in a town with a small garden where you can grow vegetables, and you want to be relatively close to railways, hospitals, shops, and libraries. The government shutting down local post offices is an enormously stupid thing to do.
** As cited in "Natural born survivors", The Guardian (2 May 2008)
* The bloody minded live longer – especially if they are marooned in one of those appalling places we call hospitals. Complain a good deal and ask as many questions as you can. Make a fuss and remind everyone in a uniform or a white coat that you are a human being.
* Carry a stout stick. I recommend carrying a stick even if you don't need it for support. Sticks are good for hitting and prodding people who have annoyed or patronised you.
** "Our guide to growing old disgracefully: how to kick ass over 60", The Herald (Glasgow, 10 January 2018).
** Extracted from The Kick Ass A-Z For Over 60s (EMJ Books). Bold text as in the original source.

## About Coleman

* Coleman's explanation suggests he has an oddly polarised view of gender - but then this is a man whose very fixed ideas about women are not noticeably informed by feminism. In People Watching (1995), women are not only warned away from big cars, but advised to "carry a small handbag to give an impression of helplessness. A large handbag will give the impression that you are totally independent and do not need to be protected by a male." In 1987 he said it was a "tragedy" that by the year 2000 half of all doctors qualifying from medical school would be women. "I thnk that is an appalling prospect... Women make wonderful nurses-they make rotten doctors." The main problem, he explained, was that neither male nor female nurses liked taking orders from women doctors: "Because they feel inferior they feel the need to push that little bit harder than anyone else."
** Geraldine Bedell "Doctor on the Make", The Independent on Sunday (7 April 1996; print version), p. 12