Abstract
The membership of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE), set up under the auspices of the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), has recently been finalised and is given below.
Chairman
Professor Dudley Goodhead, MRC Radiation and Genome Stability Unit
Members
Mr Richard Bramhall, The Low Level Radiation Campaign Dr Chris Busby, Green Audit Dr Roger Cox, National Radiological Protection Board Dr Philip Day, University of Manchester Professor Sarah Darby, ICRF Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford Dr John Harrison, National Radiological Protection Board Dr Colin Muirhead, National Radiological Protection Board Mr Pete Roche, Greenpeace UK Professor Jack Simmons, University of Westminster Dr Richard Wakeford, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd Professor Eric Wright, Ninewells Medical School, Dundee.
The Chairman of COMARE, Professor Bryn Bridges, will attend the meetings as an observer, as will officials from the Department of Health and DEFRA.
CERRIE is a working group of COMARE. CERRIE has been given the remit `to consider the present risk models for radiation and health that apply to exposure to radiation from internal radionuclides in the light of recent studies and any further research that might be needed'. CERRIE will prepare a report for COMARE, which will be published. COMARE will then advise Ministers on the need for changes to the existing risk models and for further work. Each of the members of CERRIE has been appointed because of their knowledge and experience of the issues under discussion. They have joint responsibility to evaluate thoroughly the existing evidence and make recommendations, in line with the Committee's remit.
In order to facilitate the free flow of views during Committee meetings, CERRIE has decided that its work would be best carried out under the `Chatham House Rule'. This approach will allow ideas/information raised in meetings to be discussed outside them, but the anonymity of their authors would be retained so that they will not be inhibited from developing and changing their views later on. In order to be transparent about their discussions, the members of CERRIE are preparing their own website which will include, among other things, summary minutes of their meetings. During and after the period of the Committee's deliberations and preparation of its report, members will be free to publish technical papers that they have prepared to inform the Committee, but the views expressed in them should be clearly attributable to the individual and should not imply that they reflect the views of the Committee collectively.