and an Executive Editor of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick has been a general practitioner in East London for the past twenty years. He has written on a wide range of medical and political subjects, including AIDS, addictions and health scares for both medical publications and the mainstream media. He writes columns in The Lancet and the British Journal of General Practice and is a regular contributor to the online magazine spiked (www.spiked-online.com). He has also appeared frequently on radio and television, and in 1997 produced a critical programme on ‘parenting’ for the BBC. His book The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and the Regulation of Lifestyle was published by Routledge in 2001. His critique of complementary medicine is included in Alternative Medicine – Should We Swallow It?, published by the Institute of Ideas/Hodder and Stoughton in 2002. His latest book, MMR and Autism: What Parents Need To Know (Routledge) was published in 2004.
The late Maurice Hanssen’s interest in additives began a long time before they were identified on the pack. As a director of a leading manufacturer of wines and foods, he questioned why they were using additives which seemed unnecessary and found equally good or better products could be made without using so many. Later he became a successful consultant on food and health.
Author of 28 books including the bestseller E for Additives, he has sold over two and a half million copies in all. As a Chambellan of the Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne and a Lauréat of the World Master Chefs Society, he believed that our food should be delicious, healthy and fun. He died in 2005.
Professor John Henry followed a career in general medicine and clinical toxicology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals. He was appointed to the Chair in Accident and Emergency Medicine at Imperial College School of Medicine in 1997 and made a Consultant at St Mary’s Hospital London. He has researched and written widely, and his interests cover all forms of acute poisoning and the medical complications of illicit drugs.
Mick Hume is editor of the online magazine spiked (www.spiked-online.com) and a columnist for The Times.
Dr Lakshman Karalliedde graduated from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and did his post-graduate training in anaesthesia at the Westminster and Royal Northern Hospitals London. At the Faculty of Medicine, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, he developed a special interest in organophosphorus insecticide poisoning and abuse and described the ‘Intermediate Syndrome’ of organophosphate poisoning. He resigned his post in Sri Lanka as Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology to return to the UK where he served as Senior Lecturer in Anaesthetics at United Medical & Dental Schools of Guy’s & St Thomas’ before joining the Medical Toxicology Unit of the Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust where he has been a consultant toxicologist for the past seven years. He was lead editor of Organophosphates & Health (Imperial College Press) and Handbook of Drug Interactions (Hodder Arnold) and has published widely on organophosphate and pesticide poisoning, contributing to many textbooks including Davidson’s Principles & Practice of Medicine.
Dr Malcolm Kendrick is a medical doctor who has spent many years researching the causes of heart disease. He designed and set up the educational website for the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and worked closely with a number of International Medical Societies to develop a Europe-wide system of Continuing Medical Education. He also set up the first website for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE). Malcolm has written widely on heart disease and has been critical of the so-called ‘cholesterol hypothesis’ for many years. Some of his more provocative writing on the area can be found at the website of the International Network of Cholesterol Sceptics (www.thincs.org).
Professor, Sir Peter Lachmann is a medical immunologist. He is Emeritus Professor of Immunology in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ’s College. He is also President of the Federation of European Academies of Medicine.
He was the founder President of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences (1998–2002); Biological Secretary of the Royal Society (1993–98) and President of the Royal College of Pathologists (1990–93). He served on UNESCO’s international bioethics committee from 1993–98.
For the Royal Society, he has chaired working groups on BSE and on GMOs.
Dr James Le Fanu is a general practitioner in South London and medical columnist of the Sunday and Daily Telegraph. He graduated from Cambridge University and the Royal London Hospital in 1974 and held junior hospital posts at Whipps Cross Hospital, the Royal Free, St Mary’s and the Bristol Royal Infirmary. He has made original contributions to medical journals on many subjects including the threat of a heterosexual AIDS epidemic, passive smoking, poverty and health and the dietary causes of heart disease. His history of post-war medicine, The Rise and Fall of Modem Medicine, was published by Little, Brown in June 1999.
Dr Sandy Macnair qualified in medicine from St Andrews University and, after a stint in general practice, joined the pharmaceutical industry organising both fundamental and clinical research for several companies in Europe, Africa, Australasia and North America. Latterly, he has been an independent consultant to a number of primary food producers including those of sugar, eggs, milk and salt, with regard to their impact on the public health.
Professor Sam Shuster is Emeritus Professor of Dermatology, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne and Honorary Consultant to the Department of Dermatology, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. He qualified in medicine at UCL, followed by a PhD in physiology, and, after junior clinical and research posts in the Royal Postgraduate School of Medicine, was appointed Lecturer in Medicine in the Welsh National School of Medicine. An interest in endocrinology and metabolism led on to dermatological research, and he started the Skin Research Unit in The Institute of Dermatology, and was subsequently appointed to the Chair of Dermatology in Newcastle, then the main centre for skin research in the UK. He was President of The European Society for Dermatological Research and a member of many academic and government committees. He has published many papers and books on clinical and fundamental dermatological research, including aging, UV radiation, and basic and clinical pharmacology; he has an interest in sports medicine.
Lord Taverne – Dick Taverne QC – has been an influential voice in politics for many years. As a Labour MP, he become Financial Secretary to the Treasury; in 1973, he stood and was elected as an Independent Social Democrat and today he sits in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat. Recently his main interest has been science and society and three years ago he founded the charity Sense About Science to promote the evidence-based approach to scientific issues. He is the author of The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New Fundamentalism published in 2005.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Praise for the first edition
Acknowledgements
Editors
Notes On Contributors
Preface
Introduction: Panic Nation
Prologue: Whose Opinion Can We Trust?
PART ONE: FOOD SCARES
Chapter
