In memory of Professor Peter Boyle (1951–2022)

Professor Peter Boyle was a world-leading cancer researcher for nearly half a century. Although he is best known for his work at the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France (Centre International de Recherche sur le Cancer, CIRC), which he directed between 2004 and 2008, he also worked at the most important institutions involved in the fight against cancer: first at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, his hometown; then at Harvard University in Boston, USA; later at the European Oncology Institute in Milan, Italy (with Professor Umberto Veronesi); and finally, from 2009, at the International Prevention Research Institute (iPRI) in Lyon, France.
Professor Peter Boyle was a great friend of Poland and our scientific partner of long standing.
At the end of the 20th century, Witold Zatoński, Peter Boyle and other scientists wrote together the Atlas of Cancer Mortality in Central Europe. In 2004, we completed a monograph entitled Tobacco, Science, Policy and Public Health, published by Oxford University Press, which has become one of the seminal monographs on the fight against tobacco-related diseases globally.
In parallel, Professor Boyle led from its second edition the European Code Against Cancer, including in the scientific team among others Professor Witold Zatoński together with a select group of leading cancer researchers from all over the world. This work, also under the auspices of the World Health Organization, has become a key document on the fight against cancer worldwide.
At the beginning of the 21st century, together with Professor Boyle and Professor Wojtyła, we developed a strategy to fight against cancer in Poland, called the Warsaw Declaration. We handed it over to the then Polish Minister of Health and the Prime Minister. This study became the basis for the Polish National Cancer Prevention Programme 2006-2015. The President of the Republic of Poland decorated Professor Peter Boyle with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for his services to the health of the Polish nation.
In 2018, Professor Boyle signed a cooperation agreement with the Rector of the Calisia University. The Institute – European Observatory of Health Inequalities in Kalisz and Health Promotion Foundation (Nadarzyn) co-publisher of the Journal of Health Inequalities is giving us the opportunity to conduct research with the entire scientific world. It is a...


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