New Chair for COT

The Chair of the FSA, Deirdre Hutton, has announced that on 1 April 2008 Professor David Coggon OBE, will take up his appointment as Chair of the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT). This appointment is initially for three years. He has been a member of the COT since 1 April 2007.

Professor Coggon is Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Southampton University, where he works in the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Resource Centre. He has been engaged in epidemiological research for more than 20 years, concentrating mainly on occupational and environmental causes of disease, and has published numerous papers. He has experience of committee work as Chair of several national and international bodies, including the Advisory Committee on Pesticides and Depleted Uranium Oversight Board.

He has also been a member of the COT Working Group on Organophosphates; the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (both Department of Health); the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (Department of Work and Pensions), and the Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions), and has been an expert adviser for the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The current Chair of the COT, Professor Ieuan Hughes, will retire on 31 March 2008.