Members Declarations of Interests

Professor R Sturrock (Chairman)
Professor Roger Sturrock graduated from the University of London, he has a MB BS (1969); a MD (1977), FRCP (Glasgow, 1984) and FRCP (London, 1985). He holds the McLeod/ARC Chair of Rheumatology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary/University of Glasgow NHS Trust. He is a past president of the British Society for Rheumatology (1993-8); the current chair of the Board of Trustees, Arthritis Research Campaign; a Special Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer of Scotland and a member of the Clinical Affairs Committee of the British Society for Rheumatology.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Professor A Cooke
Professor Anne Cooke graduated from Glasgow University in 1967 and obtained a D.Phil from the University of Sussex in 1970. She is a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and is Professor of Immunobiology, in the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge. Her area of scientific interest is the regulation of the immune response and, in particular, autoimmune disease and she has published extensively in this area. She is currently Chair of the Arthritis Research Council (ARC) project grant committee, a member of the Scientific Coordinating Committee of the ARC, a member of the project grant committee of Action Research and serves on several MRC committees.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Professor V Harpwood
Professor Vivienne Harpwood is a barrister and is Director of the Centre for Medico-Legal Studies at Cardiff University, where she runs a Masters degree, LLM in Legal Aspects of Medical Practice. She has published extensively on a wide range of legal issues, and gives regular lectures to healthcare professionals in the UK and overseas on various aspects of medical law. Among her recently published books is "Negligence in Healthcare: Clinical Claims and Risk in Context". She writes a monthly newsletter on medical law and she is the founding editor of Butterworths Medico-Legal Reports and the journal Medical Law International. She was a member of the NHS Complaints Review Committee.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Professor I Kimber
Professor Ian Kimber is Head of Research, Syngenta Health Assessment and Environmental Safety, based at the Syngenta Central Toxicology Laboratory. His main interests are in chemical and protein allergy and in all aspects of immunotoxicology. Professor Kimber is a member of many national and international scientific and advisory committees, including the Committee on Toxicity (COT) and the Medical Research Council Physiological Medicine and Infections Board. He has taken part in COT Working Groups on Peanut Allergy, Food Intolerance and Phytoestrogens.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Professor D London
Professor David London qualified in medicine at Oxford and St Thomas Hospital and worked as an Endocrinologist/General Physician at St Thomas and in Birmingham where he became a Professor of Medicine. Subsequent to that he was Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians and is currently Director of Specialist Training of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. He has been Consultant Adviser in Medicine, Diabetes and Endocronology to three Chief Medical Officers and has served on numerous NHS and research committees, including holding the chairmanship of the Royal College of Physician's Ethics Committee.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Mr T Milward
Mr Tim Milward is a plastic surgeon (MB BCh Cambridge - 1963, MA Cambridge - 1964, FRCS (England) - 1966). In 1976 he was appointed Consultant Plastic Surgeon and Hand Surgeon at Leicester Royal Infirmary, Lincoln County Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital, Boston. Until his retirement from the NHS in March 2002, his practice was a widespread general Plastic Surgery practice including hand surgery with special interests in cleft lip and palate surgery in the NHS, but a general range of cosmetic surgery mainly in the private practice due to rationing of cosmetic surgery in the NHS. He carried out many breast augmentation operation with silicone gel breast implants during his career.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Ms K Murphy
Katherine Murphy joined the Patients Association in 1998 and is now Director of Communications. Katherine has a professional background in nursing and has also worked in social services. Katherine's main responsibilities are managing media enquiries and conferences including arranging speakers for conferences and events.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Ms N Ratcliff
Nikki Ratcliff is one of the lay representatives on the IRG. She has a BSc(Hons) in Psychology with Philosophy minor and a MA in Critical Social Psychology. She currently studying for an MA in Health and Social Policy as well as working for the Consumers' Association where she is a Senior Policy Advisor. She also researches and writes for Which & Health Which Magazines. Ms Ratcliff is also a lay representative on the Department of Health's UK National Screening Committee as well as on the Economic and Social Research Council's Genomic Survey Panel and Innovative Health Technologies Programme Advisory Panels.

Conflicts of Interest: None

Professor A Silman
Professor Alan Silman is Director of the United Kingdom's Arthritis Research Campaign Epidemiology Unit, University of Manchester Medical School and Professor of Rheumatic Disease Epidemiology at the University of Manchester. He is also a Consultant in Rheumatology in Manchester. The ARC Unit is an internationally renowned research group undertaking investigations into epidemiological aspects of the major rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases. His interests are wide and cover genetics of Rheumatoid Arthritis, pregnancy and hormonal aspects of arthritis, the natural history of early arthritis, epidemiological studies of chronic pain syndromes, epidemioloy of osteoporosis, Behcet's disease and scleroderma. He has published over 250 original articles in these areas. He is the senior author of "Epidemiology of the Rheumatic Diseases" and an editor of the textbook "Rheumatology".

Conflict of Interest: Professor Silman has provided advice in the past on the relative strengths and weakness of different epidemiological approaches to investigating risk from silicone implants in relation to a dispute between an insurance company and a manufacturer of implants.

Professor R Walker
Professor Rosemary Walker is Professor of Pathology and Head of Department of Pathology, University of Leicester and Head of the Breast Cancer Research Unit, University of Leicester. She is a Honorary Consultant Histopathologist specialising in breast pathology at the University of Leicester NHS Trust. She has 25 years experience of breast histopathology and cytology and breast cancer research.

Conflicts of Interest: None

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Previous Members of the IRG

Professor J R Batchelor - 1997 to 2000

Professor J P Sloane - 1997 to 2000
(died 10.5.02)

Dr J Evans - 1999 to 2000

Mrs Claire Raynor - 1999 to 2000