Emeritus Professor V. Howard. MB. ChB. PhD. FRCPath.
Vyvyan is a pathologist and a specialist in toxicology, particularly with respect to the fetal and infant stages of life. He was President of ISDE 2007-2009. He is a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini and was also a past President of the Royal Microscopical Society.
Most of his professional life, Vyvyan has been professionally researching the effects of low dose repeat exposures to a variety of toxic substances during development and this has inevitably involved an understanding of many environmental pollutants, because they are a major source of exposure of human populations. He became involved in representing a number of environmental NGOs over campaigns to have certain chemicals removed form the environment. He was Chairman of Pesticides Action Network Europe for two years.
During his Presidency of ISDE Vyvyan and three other ISDE members had two meetings with Margot Wallstrom, who was then European Commissioner for the Environment, while she was in the process of formulating the REACH program. We definitely had a positive effect, in that we persuaded her that if she protected the fetus she would protect the whole population. Then, alongside Margot Walstrom, Vyvyan, representing ISDE, presented and interpreted her dioxin results in front of the international press in Brussels.
Vyvyan and his wife, Gesa, are now retired to a hill farm in Northern Ireland, where they raise organic sheep. Vyvyan continues to play his ‘cello in the Donegal Chamber Orchestra, where he is the Principal cellist.