Six new members join BSE advisors

26 February 1998

Six new members join BSE advisors

SIX new members have been appointed to the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), the independent committee that advises the Government on BSE issues.

A review of SEAC published in August 1997, recommended that its membership be widened to include an expert from the Institute for Animal Health and a representative from the public.

The Government has extended Professor Sir John Pattisons chairmanship of SEAC by a further three years. Dr Robert Will has been asked to stay on as deputy chairman for a similar term.

The new members are:

• Prof. Adriano Aguzzi, acting head of the Institute of Neuropathology at the University of Zurich;
  
• Prof. Roy Anderson FRS, head of Zoology at the University of Oxford;
  
• Prof. Anne Ferguson, who works at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh;
  
• Dr Peter Goodfellow FRS, a senior vice-president of biopharmaceutical research and development at Smithkline-Beecham Pharmaceuticals;
  
• Mrs Harriet Kimbell, deputy chairman of the Consumers Association; and
  
• Dr Christopher Bostock, director of the Institute for Animal Health.