Sir Richard Doll, lead author of the much-cited and officially embraced 1981 Doll/Peto report, played down the occupational and environmental contribution to cancer throughout the latter decades of his career, including actively opposing further control measures. In a 1996 paper in the journal Carcinogenesis he wrote: “Two categories of cause remain for which I see little possibility of material benefit from their further control, namely the hazards of occupation and pollution.”

Richard Doll. Commentary: Nature and nurture: possibilities for cancer control, Carcinogenesis, volume 17, number 2, pages 177-184, 1996.