Dr. Samuel Epstein, who received the Right Livelihood Award in 1998, has died at the age of 91. Epstein emerged as a leading international expert on the causes and prevention of cancer and received the award “for his exemplary life of scholarship wedded to activism on behalf of humanity.”
“We have lost a great scholar and a beloved member of the Right Livelihood family. Without Sam Epstein, our understanding of the environmental causes of cancer and what can be done about them would be much poorer. Our thoughts are with his family and closest friends.”, said Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation.
Dr. Samuel Epstein was born in England in 1926, graduated as a doctor and rose to work as a consultant pathologist at major institutions and hospitals at London University before emigrating to the US in 1960. He worked at the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston from 1960 to 1970, and then as “Distinguished Professor” at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In 1976 he took a position of Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he was emeritus.
Dr. Epstein emerged as a leading international authority on the causes and prevention of cancer by identifying and preventing avoidable exposures to carcinogens in consumer products, air, water, and the work place, on which he has conducted extensive basic and applied scientific research.
“The prohibition of new carcinogenic products, reduction of toxins in use, and right-to-know laws – these are among the legislative proposals which could reverse the cancer epidemic” said Dr. Epstein in his acceptance speech when receiving the Right Livelihood Award.
His combination of research and activism is a never ending source of inspiration in the continued struggle for a world free from cancer.
Learn more about Dr. Samuel Epstein’s work here. Read an obituary here.
