Samuel Epstein was born in England in 1926, graduated as a doctor and rose to work as a consultant pathologist at major institutions and hospitals at London University before emigrating to the US in 1960, where he worked at the Children's Cancer Research Foundation and Harvard in Boston. In 1976 he took his current position of Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he set up the first laboratories of toxicology and carcinogenesis in the United States.

Epstein has emerged as the leading international champion of cancer prevention, and of winning the war against cancer by preventing avoidable exposures to environmental carcinogens in air, water, food and the work place. He has conducted extensive basic and applied research in experimental pathology, on toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic affects of environmental and occupational contaminants, with particular reference to industrial petrochemicals.

In total he has authored or co-authored ten books and over 250 articles. His best-known book, The Politics of Cancer (1978), won the Notable Book and other Awards. An updated edition was published in October 1998. He has received a number of awards from academic and environmental organisations and has frequently broadcast on radio and TV nationally and internationally. Epstein has also played an important role in professional societies, especially of the more activist kind, and acted as an adviser and legislation-drafter to a number of Congressional committees.

Epstein's most recent surge of activity arose from a major initiative on February 4th 1992, when 65 eminent doctors and scientists, co-ordinated by Epstein, released a statement on the 20th anniversary of President Nixon's launch of "the war against cancer". The statement was headed "Losing the War on Cancer After 20 Years". It noted an overall increase in cancer incidence since 1950 of 44%, with much higher increases in some kinds of cancer. Out of this initiative was born the Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC), which has a comprehensive strategy of outreach, education and advocacy to establish prevention as the USA's top cancer policy. CPC has developed a variety of educational and advocacy programmes to operate at both local and national levels.

By informing consumers, through such publications as The Safe Shopper's Bible, co-authored by Epstein, which evaluates some 3,500 consumer products and putting pressure on legislators, CPC is seeking to remove the environmental causes of cancer and thereby prevent it. The long-term objective of CPC is to win the war against cancer by reducing modern epidemic cancer rates to their pre-1940 levels.