Professor Julian Peto won a Medal of Honor from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organization (WHO). The award was based on his research on workplace carcinogens such as asbestos. The researcher's previous work, concerning dose-response models for asbestos cancers such as lung cancer and mesothelioma cancer have been adopted worldwide in asbestos risk assessment.
Mr. Peto was the first to predict the extent to which the mesothelioma epidemic would grow. Mr. Peto has also researched other types of occupational disease. For example, he has researched the workplace risks associated with the manufacture of mustard gas and welding. Outside of the occupational context, Mr. Peto has researched the link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer and childhood leukemia.
