The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) now faces congressional inquiries, legal challenges, and harsh criticism from the scientific community that are shredding the agency’s credibility and threatening its future. The Lyon, France–based group is an arm of the World Health Organization and has received millions in U.S. tax dollars, funding that is now being questioned by top lawmakers on Capitol Hill including House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz. Congress is also investigating whether IARC is colluding with officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to advance a political agenda rather than sound science.
IARC’s central role is to evaluate certain risk factors and whether they can cause cancer. Each year, an IARC working group produces a report — called a monograph — classifying the level of risk for each agent. Out of the nearly 1,000 factors IARC has evaluated, only one (caprolactam) was deemed non-carcinogenic.
But one particular finding — that the agricultural chemical glyphosate is carcinogenic — led to serious questions about IARCs scientific integrity and exposed conflicts of interest among IARC participants who are trying to influence public policy here and abroad. In March 2015, IARC released its monograph on glyphosate, classifying the chemical as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” It is the only international agency to issue such a classification.
That report raised immediate suspicions for being politically motivated; glyphosate is a widely used weedkiller now targeted by environmental and anti-GMO groups around the world because it is used on several genetically engineered crops. The chemical was created by Monsanto, which also sells genetically engineered seeds, and sold under the brand name Roundup. Nearly every other scientific and governmental agency has determined that glyphosate is safe. (After the IARC report in March 2015, a separate WHO agency found that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer.) But armed with the imprimatur of a global health agency, anti-GMO activists brandish the report as proof that glyphosate is unsafe and unhealthy.