Sally Davies pays tribute to radiation committee
Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, has paid thanks to the work of COMARE - the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment.
Sally Davies visited the 100th meeting of COMARE this month, where she met members and the Chairman. Messages of support for COMARE were also delivered by Welsh CMO Dr Tony Jewell, Dr Michael McBride CMO for Northern Ireland and Sir Harry Burns, CMO for Scotland.
The Committee was established in 1985, in response to the final recommendation of the report of the Independent Advisory Group chaired by Sir Douglas Black. COMARE is an independent expert advisory committee with members chosen for their medical and scientific expertise and are recruited from Universities, Hospitals and Research Institutes. Members are appointed by the Appointments Commission on behalf of the Department of Health’s Chief Medical Officer.
Professor Alex Elliott, who is a medical physicist based at Glasgow University, chairs the Committee.
COMARE advises all government departments and offers independent medical and scientific advice on the health effects of ionising and non-ionising radiation in the environment, whether natural or man-made.
The COMARE secretariat is supplied by the Centre for Radiation Chemicals and Environmental Hazards, of the Health Protection Agency.
Upcoming reports from COMARE will focus on the Sellafield and Dounreay nuclear sites and the radiation dose received from CT scanners.