Welcome to the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) website, which has recently been re-organised and improved. We hope that the improvements will enable the information on the site to be accessed more easily. We would welcome your comments on the website, which can be emailed to us at SEACsecretariat@seac.gsi.gov.uk.

The Committee is appointed by Ministers and sponsored jointly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Its role is to provide independent expert scientific advice to the Government on spongiform encephalopathies such as BSE, CJD and scrapie. SEAC's remit is wide-ranging, and covers public health, food safety and animal health issues. 

The Committee was formed over 10 years ago and its terms of reference are as follows:

'To provide scientifically based advice to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Health, devolved administrations, and the Food Standards Agency on matters relating to spongiform encephalopathies, taking account of the remits of other bodies with related responsibilities.' 

The committee usually meets between four and six times a year to discuss TSE-related issues and provide scientific advice to Ministers. SEAC has published public summaries, and more recently full minutes of meetings, for all its meetings since October 1997. These documents, which are all available through this website, provide a comprehensive public record of the Committee's conclusions and recommendations.

Many of the documents contained within this website have been published in Portable Document Format (PDF). To view these documents you will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available as a free download from the Adobe website.

Page last updated: 5 November 2004