Cancer expert implicated in Turner and Newell asbestos exposure case

Published on Fri 8 Dec 2006

Hitting the headlines at the moment is news that the eminent scientist Sir Richard Doll had long-standing financial relationships with chemical manufacturing giant Monsanto and the asbestos company Turner and Newell. Doll, whose pioneering work revealed the link between smoking and lung cancer, was regarded as one of the leading lights in cancer research.

The relationship, revealed in documents that have just come to light, show that the Oxford College Doll founded received GBP 50,000 from Turner and Newell. The documents are also said to prove that the relationship between the company and Doll spanned thirty years.

In the wake of a damning documentary that revealed the lethal nature of asbestos, Turner and Newell invited Doll to address staff at various asbestos factories and to reassure them that their risk of contracting an asbestos-related disease was very low. Subsequently Federal Mogul – Turner and Newell's parent company - have had to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation to staff and their families who died as a result of asbestos exposure.

Unfortunately the death of Sir Richard Doll in 2005 means that he is unable to defend himself in person, and allegations that he skewed the results of his research in favour of Turner and Newell, or acted in bad faith, can't be properly tested.

*Evidential documents for this story are available from the Injury Watch website