FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 January 2007
FFI Leadership Award Reflects Fortification Progress
Stanley, Thurston, Bower Honoured for Work in Australia,
New Zealand
SYDNEY ~ After more than a decade of advocacy to better the health and lives of the people of
Australia and New Zealand, three people are being recognized by the Flour Fortification
Initiative (FFI) as national fortification champions whose dream is soon to become a reality.
Professor Fiona Stanley, Lyall Thurston and Professor Carol Bower are to receive the FFI
Leadership Award during a ceremony on 5 February in Sydney.
The ceremony is to be hosted by Professor Stephen Boyages, chief executive of Sydney West
Area Health Service and chair of the Global Health Institute. Speakers include Scott
Montgomery, FFI chair and vice president, global procurement leader for Cargill, Inc.
Dr. Stanley was Australian of the Year and is Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health
Research, CEO of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth and professor in the
Department of Paediatrics at the University of Western Australia. Mr. Thurston is a member of
the FFI Leaders Group, national president from 1998-2003 of New Zealand CCS and is the
father of a child with spina bifida – fortifying flour with folic acid will help prevent this type of
neural tube defect. Dr. Bower is head of Epidemiology and a clinical professor at the University
of Western Australia as well as a research scientist at the Telethon Institute for Child Health
Research.
Drs. Stanley and Bower and Mr. Thurston have all played prominent roles in the decade-long
push to make fortification a standard milling practice in Australia and New Zealand and the
awards reflect the substantial progress being made toward national flour fortification. In a Joint
Communique from the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council on 25
October 2006, all Ministerial Council members reinforced their commitment to reduce the
number of neural tube defects through mandatory fortification with folic acid as quickly as
possible.
The Ministerial Council discussed the Final Assessment Report from Food Standards Australia
New Zealand on a proposal for consideration of mandatory fortification of food with folic acid.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand have been asked to review the proposed standard due to
technical considerations with the implementation of the standard, and compliance issues, within
six months.
Vitamin and mineral deficiency is widespread in many nations and causes impairment of
hundreds of millions of growing minds and the lowering of national IQs, wholesale damage to
immune systems, the deaths of more than a million children a year, 200,000 serious birth defects
annually, and the deaths of approximately 50,000 young women a year during pregnancy and
childbirth. Fortifying flour is a sound economic investment for a nation and for industry in its
markets. Eliminating vitamin and mineral diseases, especially iron deficiency through food
fortification, will have an exceptionally high ratio of benefits-to-cost (in the order of 40:1) as an
investment in the development of nations, second only to prevention and control of HIV/AIDS.
FFI established the FFI Leadership Award last year. FFI, an international network of public-
private-civic organizations working to make fortification of wheat flour with vitamins and
minerals standard milling practice, bestows an FFI Leadership Award to flour fortification
champions who have played leading roles in guiding their countries to mandatory flour
fortification.
Private industry plays a key role in the FFI network and in the successes of the more than 50
other countries fortifying with at least iron and/or folic acid. The FFI Leaders Group unites
leaders in the wheat industry, including millers, wheat traders, premix suppliers, equipment
manufacturers and other affiliated industries, with leaders from governments, the United
Nations, public health agencies, NGOs, the medical and disability communities, and others in a
common effort to improve global health through wheat flour fortification. In the past two years,
the percentage of fortified flour in the world has risen from about 19 percent to 26 percent
today.
Professor Fiona Stanley
Professor Stanley heads two major organisations headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. She
is the founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, a multi disciplinary
research facility that investigates the causes and prevention of major childhood diseases and
disabilities. She is also the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Alliance
for Children and Youth, a national organisation of researchers, practitioners and policy makers
that has been established to improve the health and wellbeing of Australia's young people.
Born in Sydney in 1946, Professor Stanley moved to Perth with her family in 1956. She graduated
in medicine at the University of Western Australia in 1970. Her clinical experience in hospitals
and at the Aboriginal Clinic in East Perth sparked an interest in epidemiology and public health.
She studied the areas extensively in the UK and USA over the next six years before returning to
Perth to establish research programs at the University of Western Australia and the Health
Department of WA.
In 1990 Professor Stanley was one of the key driving forces behind the establishment of the
Institute for Child Health Research as an innovative, multi-disciplinary centre of research
excellence, and was appointed the founding director. The Institute has forged an international
reputation and is widely recognised for its comprehensive approach in bringing together clinical,
laboratory and population health scientists to tackle the major issues in child health.
She has written three books, 25 book chapters, 40 major reports or monographs and had more
than 200 papers published in refereed journals. It is Professor Stanley's research interests that
have formed the basis of her advocacy for Australia's children. In 2002, she was appointed the
Chief Executive Officer of the new Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. Her
professional focus stems from an alarming deterioration in key health indicators for children. Her
aim is to secure a national commitment to an agenda to significantly improve the health and
wellbeing of children and young people.
She was awarded the Companion for Australia in 1996 and is a member of the Prime Minister's
Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. She is married and has two daughters.
Lyall Thurston QSO
Mr. Thurston resides in New Zealand where he is the father of three sons; the eldest, Simon, was
born in 1983 with Spina Bifida Myelomeningocele, Hydrocephalus and Arnold Chiari Malformation.
As a parent/consumer, Mr. Thurston joined New Zealand CCS (formerly the New Zealand Crippled
Children Society) rising to the role of National President, a position he held from 1998 until 2003.
Founded in 1935, New Zealand CCS remains the largest provider of services to physically disabled
people in New Zealand.
A member of the FFI Leaders Group, Mr. Thurston a respected community, disability sector
health and education leader in New Zealand has championed the folate fortification initiative in
New Zealand and Australia and been the national spokesperson and front person lobbying
successive governments and industry both in New Zealand and overseas for more than 16 years.
He has spoken at many symposiums and forums around the world on the subject and in recent
times he has co-ordinated the disability sector’s lobbying campaign for both Australia and New
Zealand.
Mr. Thurston is a Companion of the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) for Community Service an
honour bestowed by her Majesty the Queen in 1998.
Professor Carol Bower
Professor Bower is Head of Epidemiology, Clinical Professor, University of Western Australia
and Research Scientist, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research. She has been a research
scientist at the Institute since its 1990 inception. She established the internationally recognised
Western Australian Birth Defects Registry; is a Fellow of the Australian Faculty of Public Health
Medicine and holds a Principal Research Fellowship from the National Health and Medical
Research Council.