Lorenzo Tomatis 1929–2007

we lost a great human being, a staunch advocate for public health, a thorough and delving scientist, and a humanitarian par excellence. Lorenzo Tomatis, MD, above all, was a learned teacher and creative innovator. His accomplishments are legion, and his far-reaching impact on human health, including the well-being of future generations, will be impossible to replace. Tomatis was clearly a true pioneer and admired leader in primary disease prevention. He stands tall among other giants and trailblazers of environmental health science and public health advocacy including Cesare Maltoni, Norton Nelson, David Rall, and Irving Selikoff. At the same time, Tomatis was respected, admired, and loved by his colleagues and fellow public health advocates as a man whose warmth, humor, strength, and sweetness were as compelling as his command of science. During his tenure at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Tomatis was instrumental in creating what has come to be recognized and known as the monument of primary prevention of cancer: the IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk to Humans (also known as the " orange books "). Since 1972, when the first monograph was published, this series of nearly 100 volumes has provided objective evaluations of carcino-genicity on agents, mixtures, and exposure circumstances. Not only did Tomatis design and develop the IARC Monographs, he was a principal leader in the scientific community in recognizing the essential value of transplacental and transgenerational carcinogenesis and developing methodologies to determine the influence of early-life exposures. Then and over time, these innovations spurred further primary prevention strategies of action and additional experimental derivatives. As a champion of modern carcinogenesis bioassays, Tomatis led the difficult course of defining the applicability and utility of these experimental animal findings for preventing cancers in humans, especially in workers and children. Tomatis was born in Sassoferrato, Italy, and began his professional career upon graduating from the University of Turin with a degree in medicine in 1953, in hygiene and preventive medicine in 1955, and in occupational health in 1957. Tomatis recognized early on that, although he enjoyed serving the medical needs of individuals , his passion for fostering public health, merged with scientific undergirding, led him to new and different challenges. In 1959, newly arrived at the University of Chicago, he began studying occupational disease and became immersed in cancer research, particularly cancer causation. Almost immediately he recognized the obvious value and significance of …