Lifetime of work on food safety and regulatory toxicology

Dr Iona Pratt, who died suddenly while on holiday in Honduras in February, was one of the best known of Irish scientists internationally.

Through her work with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), she made a richly appreciated contribution as chairwoman of the authority's panel on food contact materials, enzymes, flavourings and processing aids, known as the CEF panel.

She was also a member of the panel on food additives and nutrient sources added to food, of committees, of the International Labour Organisation and the OECD.

According to an obituary no tice to be published next week in the EFSA's Newsletter , which has been seen by The Irish Times , Dr Pratt is said to have "helped shape the field of regulatory toxicology in Ireland and Europe for 40 years as a pre-eminent specialist in her field".

She made particularly notable contributions, either on committees or as a rapporteur, to the fields of food risk-benefit analysis, previous cargoes (the assessment of the safety of transport methods for food) and the welfare of experimental animals.

Dr Claudia Heppner, head of food ingredients and packaging at the EFSA, told The Irish Times this week that Dr Pratt, who joined the authority in 2003, "was a great risk-assessor, who was not only excellent scientifically in panel, but was also an excellent chairman.

“Sometimes there are difficult moments and she had this competency” in finding common ground among scientists. Dr Heppner also drew attention to Dr Pratt’s ability, informally “in coffee breaks to use her Irish humour” to “integrative” effect, adding: “Iona was an excellent human being.”

This personal quality was celebrated also by her colleague Clare Chambers, who described her as “a perfect example of what a civil servant should be”, who often flew Ryanair to Charlerois instead of Aer Lingus to Brussels, to “save the taxpayer money”, and that if she needed to spend nights in European cities when on official business, “it was never in top hotels.”

Pratt, who was a judge of the annual Young Scientists competition at Dublin’s RDS for several years in the 1990s, was praised also by Ms Chambers for her “very, very, encouraging attitude towards younger scientists”.

Pratt was a founder member, in 1988, of the Irish Society of Toxicology. Its current president, Dr James McIntosh, told The Irish Times that she was "unmatched" in her "rare combination of wisdom, experience and enthusiasm" who "always had a solution" to a problem.

Iona Sarah Pratt was born on St Patrick's Day 1940, one of two daughters of Launcelot (Lance) French-King and his wife Mary (nee McMullan). She grew up in Malahide, Co Dublin, where her parents ran a market gardening business.

Educated at the (now closed) French School in Bray, Co Wicklow, she spent a year after school in Copenhagen, where she learned to speak Danish, a facility which never left her, along with competency in French and German.

After graduating in natural sciences from Trinity College Dublin in 1963, she spent two years in industry before returning to Trinity to complete her doctorate in chemistry, awarded in 1968.

There followed many other academic distinctions, including postgraduate work at the University of Wisconsin in the US (1968-69) and diplomas in occupational safety and health (UCD 1991) and pathology (Royal College of Pathologists, London, 1982).

From 1971, she spent many years with ICI in the UK, returning to lecture at UCD from 1982 until 1988. This was followed by two years at the Department of Labour and, from its foundation in 1990, 12 years as director of specialist services at the Health and Safety Authority in Dublin, moving to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) from 2002-2006 as director of toxicology.

FSAI chairman Prof Alan Reilly told The Irish Times that her role as a consultant, following retirement, in allaying fears over the scandal involving dioxins in pig feed in 2008 was especially highly valued.

A spokesperson for the HSA wrote that “Iona . . . moved to the global stage when she took responsibility for initiatives at EU, OECD and UN level and very effectively progressed new concepts in chemical safety management, eg the global harmonised classification of chemicals,” a comment which alluded in part to her roles as chair of the working group of the ILO on hazard communication from 1998 to 2001 and the OECD’s SIAM chemical assessment meetings from 2006-10.

A committed Christian, Dr Pratt was the treasurer of her local Church of Ireland parish in Donabate, Co Dublin, and worked as a volunteer with the St Francis animal welfare charity in Crumlin, Dublin.

Iona Pratt is survived by her husband, scientist Dr Albert Pratt, daughters Adrienne and Jenny, her sister Wendy and a grandson, Conall.