Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 9/27/16


The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants answers on how the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm gets funding for work that the committee says is “inconsistent with other scientific research” and has “generated much controversy and alarm.” 

Controversy still surrounds the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) decision, among others, to group red and processed meats in the same carcinogenic classification as asbestos, alchohol, arsenic, tobacco and steroids, for example. IARC has reviewed nearly 1,000 substances over the years, and determined that only one was “Probably Not Carcinogenic” to humans. 

So notes Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz in a letter sent to Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), questioning NIH’s financial support, via taxpayer funding, of IARC. NIH has given IARC several million dollars since 1992, including more than $1.2 million so far this year, “despite this record of controversy, retractions and inconsistencies,” he notes.

“Moreover, IARC’s determinations influence American policymaking, even though IARC avoids having to meet the strict scientific standards and government scrutiny afforded to science advisory committees in America,” Chaffetz wrote.
He used the example of California, which deems IARC an “authoritative body” for identifying cancer-causing chemicals and has issued a notice of intent to list glysophate, following IARC’s determination, “as known to the state to cause cancer” under California law.

The committee is asking NIH to provide by no later than Oct. 10 for a briefing on:
• Any and all funds given to IARC by NIH, or any of NIH’s research institutes and centers, since Jan. 1, 2012;
• Any and all funds expended by NIH, or any of NIH’s research institutes and centers, since Jan. 1, 2012; and
• Any and all correspondence between IARC and NIH, or any of NIH’s research institutes and centers, since Jan. 1, 2012.

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