Pharoah was born in 1934 in Ranchi, India, to teachers Phyllis and Oswald Pharoah, the latter of whom passed away when Peter was seven years old. He met Margaret McMinn, who he would ultimately wed in 1960, while both were training as doctors at St. Marys Hospital Medical School in London, according to an obituary penned by his kid, University of Cambridge cancer epidemiologist Paul Pharoah, in The Guardian.After working for the National Health Service (NHS) at different London healthcare facilities from 1958 to 1963, Pharoah started serving as a medical officer in Papa New Guinea, where he would eliminate the endemic cretinism that was then common in the remote Jimi valley. Subsequent public health interventions based on his work, such as guaranteeing that just iodized salt would be imported, removed endemic cretinism in the area.Peter Pharoah on his 80th birthdayPAUL PHAROAHThe next 2 decades were invested evaluating the health of children who were born during the scientific trial, according to The Guardian, after which Pharoah returned to the UK and joined the professors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
