Nutrition for Optimal Health Association, Inc.

Samuel S. Epstein, MD

NOHA Professional Advisory Board Member Samuel S. Epstein, MD, received the Right Livelihood Award, the Alternate Nobel Prize, on December 8, 1998 in Sweden, for his courageous and unrelenting work exposing the environmental causes of cancer and other diseases. Dr. Epstein is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. He has published some 260 peer reviewed articles, and authored or co-authored 10 books including: the prize-winning 1978 The Politics of Cancer; the 1995 Safe Shopper's Bible; the 1998 Breast Cancer Prevention Program; the 1998 The Politics of Cancer, Revisited; the 2001 GOT (Genetically Engineered) MILK! The Monsanto rBGH/BST Milk Wars Handbook; and the 2001 Unreasonable Risk. How to Avoid Cancer from Cosmetics and Personal Care Products: The Neways Story.

Dr. Epstein is an internationally recognized authority on avoidable causes of cancer, particularly unknowing exposures to industrial carcinogens in air, water, the workplace, and consumer products--food, cosmetics and toiletries, and household products including pesticides--besides carcinogenic prescription drugs.

Dr. Epstein's past public policy activities include: consultant to the U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works; drafting Congressional legislation; frequently invited Congressional testimony; membership of key federal committees including EPA's Health Effects Advisory Committee, and the Department of Labor's Advisory Committee on the Regulation of Occupational Carcinogens; and key expert on banning of hazardous products and pesticides including DDT, Aldrin and Chlordane. He is the leading international expert on cancer risks of petrochemicals and of consumer products including: rBGH milk; meat from cattle implanted with sex hormones in feedlots, on which he has testified for the E.C. at January 1997 WTO hearings; and irradiated food. In 1998, he presented "Legislative Proposals for Reversing the Cancer Epidemic" to the Swedish Parliament, and in 1999 to the U.K. All Parliamentary Cancer Group. He is also the leading critic of the cancer establishment, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and American Cancer Society (ACS), for fixation on damage control--screening, diagnosis and treatment, and genetic research--with indifference for cancer prevention, which for the ACS extends to hostility. This mindset is compounded by conflicts of interest with the cancer drug industry, and also with the petrochemical and other industries in the case of the ACS.

His past professional society involvement includes: founder of the Environmental Mutagen Society; President of the Society for Occupational and Environmental Health; President of the Rachel Carson Council; and advisor to environmental, citizen activist and organized labor groups.

His numerous honors include: the 1969 Society of Toxicology Achievement Award; the 1977 National Wildlife Federation Conservancy Award; the 1989 Environmental Justice Award; the 1998 Right Livelihood Award ("Alternative Nobel Prize") for international contributions to cancer prevention; the 1999 Bioneers Award; and the 2000 Project Censored Award ("Alternative Pulitzer Prize" for investigative journalism) for an article critiquing the American Cancer Society. Dr. Epstein has extensive media experience with: numerous regional and national radio programs, including NPR; major TV programs, including Sixty Minutes, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, McNeil/Lehrer, Donohue, Good Morning America, and the Today Show; Canadian, European, Australian and Japanese TV; and numerous editorials and letters to leading national newspapers.