Sir Rod Eddington (Chairman). Rod Eddington was Chief Executive of British Airways from May 2000 to September 2005. Before his role with British Airways, Sir Rod was Managing Director of Cathay Pacific Airways from 1992–1996 and Executive Chairman of Ansett Airlines from 1997–2000. Sir Rod is a non-executive director of News Corporation, Rio Tinto, JP Morgan (Australia), and John Swire & Son Pty Limited.
Marian Bell CBE. Marian Bell was appointed as an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee from June 2002 to June 2005. The Monetary Policy Committee is responsible for setting interest rates to meet the government’s inflation target. Marian Bell was previously Senior Economist (1985–1989) and Head of Research, Treasury and Capital Markets (1987–2000) at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Her previous appointments include Economic Adviser at HM Treasury (1989–1991).
Right Honourable Baroness Bottomley. Virginia Bottomley was a member of the British House of Commons from 1984–2005, receiving her first ministerial position in 1988, as junior Environment minister. She was appointed Minister of Health in 1989 and served as Secretary of State for Health from 1992–1995, and then as Secretary of State for National Heritage from 1995–1997.
Virginia Bottomley, currently an executive of the headhunters Odgers, Ray, and Berndston, is involved with a number of charitable and academic bodies. She is a Governor of the London School of Economics and the University of the Arts, London. She is also a Council Member of the Ditchley Foundation and President of Farnham Castle Centre for International Briefing. She is on the Advisory Council of the International Chamber of Commerce UK and the Judge School of Management, Cambridge.
JKC de Courcy(Chief Executive). Joe de Courcy has been involved continuously in international and specialist publishing since 1982, with Doubleday, Harper Collins, and Jane’s Information Group. Since 1999, he has been Chief Executive of Intelligence Research Ltd, publishers of Latin American Newsletters and the Asia Intelligence Service. He graduated in jurisprudence from Oriel College, Oxford in 1977.
Geoffrey Riddell. Geoff Riddell is a member of the Group Executive Committee and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Corporate Business of Zurich Financial Services. He joined Zurich in May 2000 and was promoted to a member of the Group Executive Committee in October 2004.
Geoff Riddell began his professional life as an accountant with Pricewaterhouse–Coopers. His subsequent career included 18 years with AIG, during which time he worked within corporate business, reinsurance, and personal lines as well as finance, IT, strategic planning, and administration. He was responsible for the national management of AIG’s Belgian, French, and Hong Kong businesses. While in Hong Kong, he was responsible for setting up the first foreign general insurance company in China.
Geoff Riddell holds a chemistry degree from Oxford University.
Robert Webb QC. Robert Webb QC is General Counsel of British Airways. He also carries responsibility for Safety, Security, Risk Management, Environmental issues, Government Affairs, and British Airways Health Services.
Robert Webb, now 57, was called to the Bar in 1971 and became Queen’s Counsel in 1988. He practised as a QC for 10 years as Head of Chambers at 5 Bell Yard, London from where he joined British Airways in 1998. His specialities were aviation, pharmaceutical law, and mass disasters.
He is a Non-Executive Director of the London Stock Exchange and of Hakluyt, a Bencher of the Inner Temple, and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He sat as a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1993–98 and is a past Chairman of the International Relations Committee of the Bar Council. He also sits on the Board of ‘London First’. He was for five years (1999–2005) a Director of Air Mauritius.
Editorial
Dr Andy Robertson (Editor-in-Chief).Divisional Director, Health Protection Group, Western Australia. Dr Robertson is leading figure in the development of an equivalent to the UK Health Protection Agency in Australia. He commenced as the Director, Disaster Preparedness and Management for the Western Australian Department of Health in October 2003 and led the Australian medical tsunami relief team to the Maldives in December 2004.
Professor Mahdi Balali-Mood (Associate Editor for Chemical Hazards). Director of the Medical Toxicology Centre, Imam Reza Hospital, Mashhad, Iran. With degrees in chemistry and medicine, Professor Balali-Mood gained a PhD from Edinburgh University in the UK, going on to lecture in clinical pharmacology and toxicology. Mahdi was made Director of the Medical Toxicology Centre in Mashhad in 1982. He founded the Iranian Society of Toxicology in 1989 and was its President until 2001. Mahdi has been Clinical Toxicology Adviser to the International Programme on Chemical Safety and the World Health Organization since 1989.
Captain David Brown (Associate Editor for Radionuclear Hazards).Consultant in Occupational Medicine, Royal Navy, UK. Dr Brown has an extensive background, both practical and research, in the fields of radiation biology, radiation protection, and nuclear safety, and was responsible for setting up a new department of submarine and radiation medicine at the Institute of Naval Medicine. He has also held posts as the Defence Consultant Adviser in radiation medicine, Professor of Naval Occupational Medicine, and the UK liaison officer covering Deployment Health in the USA. He is currently Deputy Director of Assessment for the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.
Professor David Cooper (Associate Editor for Emergency Preparedness & Response).Department of Disaster Response and Preparedness, Menzies Institute of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Professor Cooper is the Foundation Chair of Disaster Response and Preparedness, responsible for developing Australia’s front-line disaster capability, as well as leading a national research agenda and curriculum in health emergency management. His primary research interests are in mass casualty management, capacity building for emergency medical systems in developing countries, crisis leadership in disasters, and mass gathering event management.
Professor Patrick Woo (Associate Editor for Infectious Diseases).Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Professor Woo's research focuses on the discovery of novel viruses and bacteria, and novel causes of unexplained infectious disease syndromes, as well as microbial genomics. Notable examples of novel viruses discovered by Professor Woo and his team include human coronavirus HKU1, bat SARS coronavirus, and other bat coronaviruses; notable examples of novel bacteria include Laribacter hongkongensis, Streptococcus sinensis, and Catabacter hongkongensis; notable examples of novel causes of unexplained infectious disease syndromes include the association between cell-wall-deficient bacteria and neutropenic fever, Laribacter hongkongensis and gastroenteritis, Streptococcus sinensis and infective endocarditis, Tsukamurella and conjunctivitis, and human coronavirus HKU1 and respiratory tract infections.
Tom Hopkinson (Executive Editor). Tom joined EHTF from John Wiley & Sons, where he was responsible for four Society journals in the field of applied chemistry. Before that, at the Society of Chemical Industry, he wrote for the magazine Chemistry and Industry and the journal BioFPR as well as managing the society's journals. Tom holds a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, where he specialised in plant and microbial sciences.
Anita Makri (News and Reviews Editor). Anita joined the Forum in June 2007. She received Masters degrees in Public Health from the George Washington University, and in Environmental Science and Policy from Clark University. Much of Anita’s experience is in the research and analysis of environmental health risks with a focus on vulnerability. She worked as Assistant Editor with BioMed Central, wrote articles for university news, and authored science publications as part of her research.
Holly Else (News Writer). Holly joined the Forum in June 2008. She received a Masters degree in science communication from Imperial College London after completing an undergraduate degree in biomedical science at the University of Sheffield. Holly comes to the Forum with a background in the public engagement of medical science. She has undertaken an internship with the News Editor of the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation in Geneva, and most recently, she worked in The Gambia reporting on research into infectious diseases and public health for the UK’s Medical Research Council.
The Scientific Advisory Council
Professor Pat Troop (Chair). Professor Troop is the former Chief Executive of the Health Protection Agency in the UK. Professor Troop spent her early career in clinical medicine and has held positions in public health at local, national, and regional levels. From 1999–2003, she was Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health with responsibility for public health. She is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Honorary Professor at the City University, London, and has an honorary Doctorate in Public Health from the University of East Anglia.
Dr Tony Atkinson. Tony Atkinson has a BSc and a PhD in Biochemistry from Manchester University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Institute of Nanotechnology, and the International Institute of Biotechnology. Tony is also a visiting professor at the Universities of Bath and Bristol. Tony spent 24 years at the Government Research Establishment at Porton Down where he became Director of Biotechnology and Deputy Director of the Institute. Since then, Tony has developed a number of cutting-edge technologies from biofuels to the pharmaceuticals industry. Tony has a corporate directorship and shareholding in a number of early-stage companies.
Professor Peter Blain. Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the Medical School, Newcastle University, and Director of the Medical Toxicology Research Centre, HPA and Newcastle University. Professor Blain has extensive experience in the health effects of industrial and environmental chemicals and serves as a medical toxicologist on a number of Government advisory committees, both in the Department of Health and the Ministry of Defence.
Professor Peter Borriello. Chief Executive of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, and formerly Director of the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections. Professor Borriello is chairman of a number of international and national learned societies and committees, including the recently established Rapid Review Panel, for products that may help reduce hospital-acquired infections, and on the Editorial Board of six scientific journals. He holds three chairs, being a Special Professor of the University of Nottingham (microbial pathogenicity), Visiting Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Microbiology), and Professor of Microbial Ecology at the Free University of Herborn. His basic science research has led to over 300 publications.
Professor Christophor Dishovsky.Department of Military Toxicology, Military Medical Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria. With degrees in medicine from the Sofia Medical University and a PhD from the Medical Institute in Kiev, Professor Dishovsky has been professor of toxicology at the Military Medical Academy since 1990. He is also president of the Bulgarian Toxicological Society.
Professor Rod Griffiths. President, Faculty of Public Health, London, UK. Professor Griffiths entered public health as a lecturer in Social Medicine at Birmingham University, became a member of the Faculty of Public Health in 1981, and a Director of Public Health for Central Birmingham Health Authority in 1982. In 1993, Rod became Regional Director of Public Health for the West Midlands Regional Health Authority and remained in post until his retirement in May 2004. He also served as Vice President of the Faculty from 1993–96. Rod was awarded the CBE in 2000.
Dr Margaret Hartley. Director of the National Industries Chemicals Notification and Assessment Programme, the Australian Government programme to assess and manage the risks to human health and the environment associated with the use of industrial chemicals. Dr Hartley also holds a joint appointment as Director of the Office of Chemical Safety in the Therapeutic Goods Administration and leads on public health policy and assessment for pesticides and veterinary medicines. She has played a very active role in WHO’s International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) and has chaired its Steering Committee on the Harmonization of Approaches to the Assessment of Health Risks from Exposure to Chemicals. Margaret has a PhD in pharmacology and toxicology.
Dr Jae-Hoon Song. Chairman of Asian Network for Surveillance of Resident Pathogens.
Professor Barry Schoub. Head of the Department of Virology of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, South Africa. Professor Schoub is a member of a number of international bodies, including the International Task Force on Vaccines, and serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization for several of its vaccine programmes.
Professor Brian Spratt. Chair in Molecular Microbiology in the Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care Medicine at Imperial College, London. Professor Spratt was previously a Professor of Biology at Oxford and Sussex Universities and has been a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow since 1989. Currently he works on the evolutionary and population biology, and the molecular epidemiology of major bacterial pathogens, particularly S. pneumoniae, N. gonorrhoeae, N. meningitidis, Staphylococcus aureus, and S. pyogenes. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1993 and is a founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Observers
Dr Kersten Gutschmidt. Scientist at the IPCS at the WHO in Geneva. Dr Gutschmidt played a major role in the publication of the IPCS, WHO, and IOMC book on ‘Public Health and Chemical Incidents’ and also works closely with the HPA on a number of research projects, including the development of public health scenarios for exposure to chemical incidents. He is an observer at the G7+Mexico GHSAG Chemical Working Group.
Dr Tim Meredith. Director of the IPCS. The work of the IPCS covers three main areas: evaluation of chemical risks to humans (production of internationally recognised risk assessments on specific chemicals and guidance on risk assessment methodology), activities relating to poisoning information, prevention and treatment (strengthening capacity in countries, production of guidance material, promoting common approaches to collection of data etc.), and acting as a focus for international activity on chemical incidents. Dr Meredith is a clinical toxicologist by training. In 1995, he became the first Director of the Centre for Clinical Toxicology at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. In 2000 he moved to WHO in Geneva to head the IPCS.
