Press Release

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17 March 2003

GOVERNMENT PUBLISHES REPORT ON THE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Food Standards Agency, Defra and the Department of Health have completed a review of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), and a report is being published today.

SEAC provides independent expert scientific advice to the Government on BSE, scrapie and vCJD. It was last reviewed in 1997.

The terms of reference for the review were:

"to examine the need for the Committee, its role, methods of operation and effectiveness; including its terms of reference and composition, the openness and transparency of its procedures and the relationships between the Committee, the commissioning departments and other bodies with related responsibilities, including the EU Scientific Steering Committee."

Members of SEAC and a wide range of people (inside and outside government) were consulted during the review.

The review team's report makes a number of recommendations intended to help in planning the way forward for the Committee. More fundamentally, it confirms that SEAC still has a crucial role to play, and continues to make a significant contribution to the protection of human and animal health and to our understanding of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs).

The SEAC Secretariat and the relevant Government Departments will now consider how best to implement the various recommendations.

A copy of the report is available at;

http://www.seac.gov.uk/committee/review.htm

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Notes for editors

1. The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee is a Government advisory committee 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).

2. The Committee was established in April 1990. It was last reviewed in 1997.

3. The review, launched in October 2002, examined the role, methods of operation and effectiveness of SEAC, in relation to the work that it undertakes for Government. The chairman of SEAC was interviewed by the review team.

4. Further information about the review is available from the SEAC web site: www.seac.gov.uk/committee/review.htm. This information is also available from the Defra, FSA and DH web sites.

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