West Chester, Pa. - William G. Figueroa, a doctor who published a landmark report that linked lung cancer with exposure to a specific chemical, has died. He was 66.

Figueroa died Monday of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, in his West Chester home. A pulmonary specialist with a reputation as a skilled clinician and researcher, he was best known for a 1973 report that showed industrial workers were developing lung cancer because of exposure to a certain chemical.

The report in the New England Journal of Medicine connected lung cancer with exposure to chloromethyl methyl ether and a contaminant in it, bis-chloromethyl ether. Figueroa documented 14 workers at the chemical company Rohm & Haas who were exposed to the chemical and developed lung cancer.

The report ultimately led to the end of exposing industrial workers to CME.
Born in Camden, N.J., and raised in Merchantville, N.J., Figueroa earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1957 and his medical degree from Hahnemann Medical School in 1961.

He was chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Lankenau Hospital from 1980 to 1996 and was a clinical professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital until his retirement in 2000.

Donald D. Peterson, a partner of Figueroa's, said the doctor "taught other doctors that the practice of medicine involved making important decisions about people, not 'cases.'"