Richard Doll - Controversy

Controversy

After his death, controversy arose over some of his work because his papers, held at the Wellcome Library, showed that for many years he had received consultancy payments from chemical companies whose products he was to defend in court. These include US$1,500 per day consultancy fee from Monsanto Company for a relationship which began in 1976 and continued until 2002. He also received fees from the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Dow Chemicals, and ICI. Some donations, including a £50,000 gift from asbestos company Turner and Newall, were given in public ceremony to Green College, Oxford where his wife was Warden, but most fees and payments remained undisclosed to the public, Oxford University and colleagues until his death. His defenders point out that his connections to industry were widely known by those in the field, that he did his work before formal disclosure of commercial interests became commonplace and that on occasion, he came to conclusions that were unpalatable to the companies who consulted him. His own view, as reported by Richard Peto, was that it was necessary to co-operate with companies for access to data which could prove their products to be dangerous.

Doll caused controversy in 2001 when he said in a BBC radio interview that "the effects of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me”.