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House committee seeks NIH info about IARC funding

The head of the House committee on oversight and government reform is asking the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about the funding it gives to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).  The France-based U.N. agency has said that the weed killer glyphosate “probably causes cancer.”

Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz of Utah, in a letter to the NIH, says IARC’s “standards and determinations for classifying substances” as cancer-causing “appear inconsistent with other scientific research.”

Both the European Union and the EPA have issued reports on the chemical’s safety. EPA is currently conducting another review of glyphosate.

Chaffetz is asking the NIH for its process on how it awards funding, saying in his letter that records show it has given seven-million dollars to IARC since 1992, including more than $1 million dollars this year.

His letter also says “questions persist” about IARC’s classification of red and processed meats putting all but one of one-thousand close to, or, in the same cancer-causing categories as “asbestos, alcohol, arsenic, tobacco and steroids.”

A just-released study by 15 scientists commissioned by Monsanto says glyphosate is unlikely to pose a cancer risk to humans.