Secretariat
The Health Council’s secretariat consists of a scientific staff and an Operations department. The employees assist in the work of the committees and standing committees. The secretariat is managed by the Health Council’s executive director.
Executive director
Ms. A.
Wijbenga, MSc
Anneke Wijbenga has been executive director of the Health Council of the Netherlands since 1 October 2005.
Anneke studied biology, with toxicology and environmental science as specialisations, at Wageningen University. She also studied environmental chemistry and toxicological chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. She continued her studies in Environmental Health and Urban Ecology at Columbia University in New York. Then she worked at the International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals of the UNEP in Geneva and subsequently, until 30 September 2005, as toxicologist for the Province of South Holland. She also headed the Strategy, Environmental Policy and Safety Bureau there.
Before Anneke became executive director, she was already a member of the Health Council of the Netherlands. She was vice-president of the Health and the Environment Advisory Group and thus also a member of the Presidium Committee. In addition, she was a member of the Ecotoxicology Advisory Group and acted as president of several Health Council of the Netherlands committees.
Additional positions:
- Member of the Advisory Board of the Dutch Cochrane Centre (DCC)
- Member Netherlands Society of Toxicology (NVT)
- Member Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV)
- Member Sociëteit De Witte
- Member Soroptimistclub Wassenaar
