Professor John Henry RIP

Jamie Bogle passed on the following message (sent 8 May) asking for prayers for the late Professor John Henry.
Spare a prayer for my very good and well-beloved friend Professor John Henry, late Professor of Accident and Emergency Medicine at St Mary's Paddington and the UK's top toxicologist, who identified the isotope that killed Litvinenko, last year and had formerly been a Director of the Poisons Unit at Guy's Hospital where he saved a great many lives, particularly children accidentally ingesting household products of varying degrees of lethality. Many a distraught mother has had the best of reasons to be grateful to him. In his retirement, he generously gave even more of his time to others. and to good causes.

He had been living on one kidney for the last 30 years but it packed up and he went into hospital and last night suffered an aneurysm which, sadly, carried him off this morning.

John's primary foray into the international scene came in the aftermath of the Ukrainian elections not long ago, when he was the first to point out that opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, since elected President, may have been poisoned with dioxins, a diagnosis confirmed by doctors a month later.

His second foray came when he was asked for his advice on the suspected poisoning of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. Told some of the symptoms, John suggested radioactive thallium might be to blame. Characteristically, he worked on this celebrated case free of charge.

No great age - 67 - he was also a director of Netherhall House and a Numerary (i.e. celibate) member of Opus Dei. He has been a familiar face to students and others at Netherhall and around London for many years. His genial and kindly manner and generous soul endeared him to all who knew him and he will be very sadly missed. I shall certainly miss him greatly.

The funeral arrangements are expected to be announced soon. Please pass this on so that others may pray for John.

Orate pro eum et invicem.

With many thanks for your prayers,

Jamie Bogle

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