Richard Doll - Building

Building

The Richard Doll Building was named in his honour and opened shortly before his death. It currently houses the Clinical Trial Service Unit, Cancer Epidemiology Unit and National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit. A plaque inside the building contains the following quotation from Doll:

"Death in old age is inevitable, but death before old age is not. In previous centuries 70 years used to be regarded as humanity's allotted span of life, and only about one in five lived to such an age. Nowadays, however, for non-smokers in Western countries, the situation is reversed: only about one in five will die before 70, and the non-smoker death rates are still decreasing, offering the promise, at least in developed countries, of a world where death before 70 is uncommon. For this promise to be properly realised, ways must be found to limit the vast damage that is now being done by tobacco and to bring home, not only to the many millions of people in developed countries but also the far larger populations elsewhere, the extent to which those who continue to smoke are shortening their expectation of life by so doing."

One of the buildings of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, London is also named after Sir Richard Doll.