December 5th 2025

Tribute to the Life and Work of Sheldon Samuels

Sheldon Samuels, a founder with Drs. Irving Selikoff and Cesare Maltoni of the Collegium Ramazzini, and its first treasurer, passed away on November 25,2025 in Virginia. He was 96 and in declining health in his last years.

The Collegium, as a bridge between science and public policy, was a natural extension of his core beliefs.  His many friends and colleagues will miss him dearly for his professional dedication, intellect, easy laughter, and loyalty.

In 2012 he received the Ramazzini Award.  In recognition of his work, the Collegium issued the following statement:
“For more than six decades Sheldon W. Samuels has galvanized public participation in making and implementing environmental and occupational health policy. He is a founding Fellow and incorporator of the Collegium Ramazzini and assisted in the founding of the Society for Occupational and Environmental Health, the American College of Toxicology, the Society for Risk Assessment, and the American Bioethics Association. 

After graduating from the University of Chicago in 1951, he laid the foundation for his career in advocacy by working for a decade as writer, editor, and educational radio producer. In 1959 he was recruited by the New York State Health Department to organize the state’s Action for Clean Air Program, enabling public participation in air quality zoning. He initiated the nation’s first state-wide smog alert and in 1967 was recruited by the United States Public Health Service to translate the program into a nationwide effort. As Chief, Field Services, Office of Information and Education for the Air Pollution Program, Samuels was detailed to the core staff of the Environmental Protection Agency. 

In 1971 he was recruited by the industrial unions to develop the labor movement’s first education and research center for occupational and environmental health. He personally submitted the first petition for the first permanent standard under the OSHAct - for asbestos - and coordinated subsequent successful petitions for benzene, cotton dust, lead, vinyl chloride, carcinogens, sanitation, medical surveillance, radon daughters, and other standards issues.  He conducted pilot industry-specific educational and research programs for the international labor movement such as “Superfund” workers training and authored the AFL-CIO policies on genetic testing and medical surveillance. 

Samuels was appointed by the President to the National Cancer Advisory Board in 1984, chairing the Subcommittee on Risk Assessment. He held conference appointments to UNDP and ILO, and provided technical assistance to labor, management and government in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Israel on assignment of the Departments of Commerce, Labor, State and Energy. In 1985 he was made an honorary member of the Norwegian and Swedish Labor Organizations for his international work. Today he serves as the AFL-CIO’s Special Representative for Nuclear Weapons Workers Health, Metal Trades Department and Director Emeritus of its Health, Safety and Environment, Industrial Union Department. 

Samuels is a prolific writer and was a founding Contributing Editor of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine (1980-1992). Since 1995 Samuels has worked full-time as an independent pro bono scholar. His moral histories focus on problems of practicing occupational medicine and ameliorating social disease seen in the delivery of compensation for medical expenses and wage replacement, especially in nuclear weapons populations and uranium mining communities. The Collegium Ramazzini honors Shelly Samuels for his leadership to improve occupational safety and health conditions for all workers and to promote a better moral and scientific basis for occupational and environmental health.