Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards

Membership

See also:

• New chairman of Advisory Panel on Air Quality appointed (news release, 12 February 2003)

CHAIRMAN

Professor Stephen Holgate BSc, MD, DSc, FRCP, FRCPE, CBiol, FIBiol, FRSA, FMedSci is currently a Medical Research Council Clinical Professor at the University of Southampton with a special interest in asthma and allergies. He has published over 400 peer reviewed papers on the subject with a special focus on the mechanisms of the disorders. For 7 years he was Chairman of the Department of Health's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants and is currently a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

Professor Holgate indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

MEMBERS

Professor H Ross Anderson, MD, MSc, FFPHM, qualified in medicine in Melbourne in 1964. From 1966 to 1972, he worked in Papua New Guinea, where his research interests in environmental epidemiology developed. He moved to Britain in 1972 and spent time at the Medical Research Council's Pneumoconiosis Unit in South Wales and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1976 he was appointed to a senior lectureship in epidemiology at St George's Hospital Medical School and became Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health in 1985. His main research interests are in the epidemiology of asthma and the health effects of air pollution. He is a member of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution.

Professor Anderson indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Professor J G Ayres BSc., MD., FRCP. Is a respiratory physician with a strong interest in asthma and in the response of the lung to air pollutants. His work on the series of Birmingham Panel Studies designed to investigate the effects of air pollutants on health is well known. His recent studies of the effects of exposure to sulphate aerosol on heart rate variability has generated great interest and may be important in explaining the differential responses to air pollutants seen in normal subjects and in subjects suffering from asthma. He is also a member of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (Dept of Health).

Professor Ayres indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr Peter Baxter MD, MSc, FRCP, FFOM. After qualifying in medicine at University College London and University College Hospital London in 1967, Dr Baxter trained in hospital medicine before specialising in occupational medicine. He gained his MD by thesis at the Health & Safety Executive, London, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London. He spent three years as a medical epidemiologist in the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA, and then returned to the Health & Safety Executive as Regional Medical Director for London in the Employment Medical Advisory Service. In 1989, he took up his present post as Consultant Physician in Occupational and Environmental Medicine in the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. He was senior editor of the latest (9^th) edition of Hunter's Diseases of Occupations, an international reference work on occupational and environmental diseases.

Dr Baxter indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr John W Cherrie BSc, PhD, FBIOH, is a Senior Lecturer in Occupational Hygiene in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He is based part-time at the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh. His research interests include human exposure assessment, environmental and occupational epidemiology, natural and synthetic fibres, dermal exposure and particulate air pollution. He is currently involved with a study to investigate particle and gas emissions from domestic cooking.

Dr Cherrie indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr Anne E. Cockcroft MD, FRCP, FFOM, is Honorary Visiting Professor in Occupational Medicine in the Department of Public Health Sciences at St Georges Hospital Medical School, University of London. Her research interests include occupational and environmental lung diseases, with work particularly in coal workers, occupational health in health care workers, the physiology of breathlessness and public health and service delivery in developing countries. She is editor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Dr Cockcroft indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Professor Dick Derwent OBE has spent much of his research career studying atmospheric chemistry. Initially, this work was carried out in the Air Pollution Division, Warren Spring Laboratory, Stevenage where he set up monitoring networks for ozone, NOx, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. He then spent a period of 16 years at the Harwell Laboratory building models of stratospheric ozone depletion, tropospheric ozone build-up, acid rain and ground level ozone formation. Having had a three year spell as a research manager in the Department of Environment, he joined the Meteorological Office. His main task there has been to build a global three-dimensional model to describe acid rain, photochemical ozone formation and the build up of greenhouse gases. Dick is the joint author of over 310 published papers dealing with acid rain, urban pollution, photochemical smog and global atmospheric chemistry. He is Honorary Professor in School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and Visiting Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at Imperial College London Faculty of Life Sciences. He was awarded the OBE in January 2001 in recognition of his contribution to atmospheric chemistry research at the Met Office.

Professor Derwent indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr Jonathan Grigg BSc, MD, MRCP, FRCPCH, is a Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine in the Department of Child Health at the University of Leicester, and an Honorary Paediatric Consultant at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. His research activities include studies into the effects of traffic-derived air pollution on children's health, and modelling interactions between pollutant particles and respiratory cells. He is currently studying the factors that determine the burden of pollutant particles in the lower airways of children, both in the UK and in Africa.

Dr Grigg indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Professor Roy Harrison, B.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.C., C.Chem., F.R.Met.S., Hon. M.F.P.H.M., Hon F.F.O.M. has occupied the Chair of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham since 1991. He is Head of the Division of Environmental Health and Risk Management and leads a large research group focussing on air pollution issues from emissions, through atmospheric transformations, to effects on human health. He is past Chair of the Department of Environment Quality of Urban Air Review Group and DETR Airborne Particles Expert Group and currently sits as a member of the DEFRA Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances and Air Quality Expert Group and the Department of Health Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants.

Professor Harrison indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Professor Frank J Kelly holds the chair in Environmental Health at King's College London, where he is Director of the Environmental Research and Lung Biology Groups. From these dual positions he is able to combine his two main research interests, namely free radical/antioxidant biochemistry and the impact of atmospheric pollution on human health. The Lung Biology Group investigate respiratory disease in a range of patient groups including premature infants, asthmatics and heart disease patients. Professor Kelly's current research focuses on the mechanisms underlying the health effects of ozone and particulates, work supported by the MRC and the EU. He is also the President of the European Society for Free Radical Research and past Chairman of the British Association for Lung Research. In 2002 he joined the WHO air pollution advisory Board. He is a member of ESCODD (European Standardisation Committee on Oxidative DNA Damage); EUROFEDA (European Research on Functional Effects of Dietary Antioxidants) and the Scientific Board of the Polish Academy of Science, Olsztyn, Poland.

Professor Kelly indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr Alison Searl has a BSc and PhD in Geology and a Masters in Environmental Studies. She taught in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Birmingham for seven years before starting at the IOM in 1993 as section head for the analytical lab. Her responsibilities subsequently expanded to include environmental consultancy and has been a member of the IOM board since 2002. She undertakes consultancy and research in health impact assessment for airborne contaminants in both the general environment and the workplace. Typical assignments have included reviews of the health impacts of metals,classical air pollutants and secondary air pollutants arising from power generation in the UK, advising on occupational exposure limits for pharmaceuticals and other substances for which no formal limits exist and providing evidence for planning inquiries on the health impacts of opencast mining and incineration. A more unusual assignment has involved the monitoring of exposure of residents of Montserrat in the West Indies to airborne volcanic ash containing high levels of crystalline silica because of concerns about the potential development of serious lung disease on the island as a result of exposure to the ash.

Dr Searl indicated that she had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Mr John Stedman is a Principal Air Quality Consultant at NETCEN (part of AEA Technology plc) and leads a team responsible for data analysis, pollution climate mapping and air quality policy analysis. He has a BA in Chemistry from Wadham College, Oxford. He has worked in the air quality field since joining Warren Spring Laboratory in 1988 and joined AEA Technology in 1994. His research interests include urban and rural air quality, air quality policy, pollutant mapping and assessment of the health benefits resulting from the measures proposed to improve air quality. Mr Stedman has previously been a member of the Photochemical Oxidants Review Group and the Airborne Particles Expert Group and is a member of the Air Quality Expert Group.

Mr Stedman indicated that he had canvassed on behalf of the Labour Party and helped at elections during the past five years. He does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Ex officio member - Chairman of the Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment

Professor Peter Blain, is Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the Medical School, Newcastle University. He has extensive experience on the health effects of industrial and environmental chemicals and serves as a medical toxicologist on a number of other Government advisory committees, both in the Department of Health and other Government Departments, especially MOD.

Ex officio member - Member of the Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment

Professor David Shuker, is currently Professor of Organic Chemistry and Head of the Department of Chemistry at the Open University in Milton Keynes. His research interests relate to the development of biomarkers for measuring human exposure to environmental and dietary genotoxins. He worked for a number of years at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon and the MRC Toxicology Unit in both Carshalton and Leicester and has co-authored over 100 research papers and review articles.

LAY MEMBER

Ms Ann Davison is a well known advocate for consumers who started her career at Which? magazine and went on to lead the UK consumer movement on European policy as Secretary of Consumers in Europe Group. Ann is Manager of Foodaware; the Consumers' Food Group, which represents UK consumer, women's and enforcement organisations on food standards. As Leader of the Consumer and Environment Category on the EU Economic and Social Committee, she has contributed to EU legislation on risk issues, such as BSE, as well as on air quality standards. Ann was elected President of External Relations at the EESC in October and is responsible for helping civil society in the enlargement countries to adapt to EU environmental and other regulations. A Co-founder of the Fairtrade Foundation and the Transatlantic Consumers Dialogue, Ann believes in encouraging best practice by industry and high quality information to consumers.

Ms Davison indicated that she stood as a candidate for MEP during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.