- Brief Curriculum Vitae
Charles Medawar's professional background is in consumer protection. He worked with Consumers' Association (1966-71) and was later elected to its Council (1971-74). After a stint with Ralph Nader, working in Washington DC, he returned to the UK to set up Public Interest Research Centre (a Registered Charity) and Social Audit (its publishing arm), where he led a small team which attempted to develop and apply methodologies for social accounting, reporting on the ways in which major companies interpreted and discharged various social responsibilities. Since 1977, Medawar has specialised on medicines policy and drug safety issues (in both developing and industrialised economies) and on matters of corporate, governmental and professional accountability relating thereto. Most of his work has been funded by a prominent Quaker foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
More recently, Medawar has held several appointments with the World Health Organisation, including the WHO Conference of Experts on the Rational Use of Drugs (Nairobi, 1985) and Rapporteur of the Working Group of Experts on National Drug Policy (1988). He is now a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Policies and Management. He was a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Consumer Interests and Health Education of the US Pharmacopeial Convention (1995-2000); Editorial Board of Drug & Therapeutics Bulletin, (1990-95); Chair, Investment Sub-committee, Committee of Reference of the Friends Provident Stewardship Trusts; Trustee, Allen Lane Foundation (1989-2001); Hon. Fellow, Centre for Environmental Accounting, University of Dundee; and Council member of SustainAbility Ltd.
During 2004/5, Medawar worked as a specialist advisor on the Parliamentary Health Committee inquiry into ‘The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry’. He has also worked as a consultant to the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care (2000), and as external assessor for the Open University’s MBA course in Life Sciences. During the 1980s, Medawar worked as scientific coordinator on a number of legally-aided class actions, and was responsible for generic research notably on actions relating to transmission of HIV to haemophiliacs via Factor VIII and other blood products; benoxaprofen (Opren/Oraflex); Toxic Shock Syndrome and dependence on benzodiazepine tranquillisers.
Medawar writes, broadcasts and lectures regularly on corporate social responsibility and medicines policy and safety issues. His most recent work (with Professor Anita Hardon) is Medicines out of Control? Antidepressants and the Conspiracy of Goodwill (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2004). A publications list is available on request, but much of his recent work (1998-2008) can be accessed on the Social Audit website (www.socialaudit.org.uk) which now attracts over 1,000,000 visitors a year.
HOME or WHAT'S NEW?