IARC monographs, industry influence, and upgrading, downgrading, and under-grading chemicals: a personal point of view. International Agency for Research on XXXX .

@entity1 @entity1044 @entity5 @entity8335 @entity26244 @entity96 @entity5248 @entity8021 @entity4965 @entity12472 @entity7388 @entity5651 @entity334 @entity105 @entity16365 @entity13136 @entity16748
The first IARC Monographs Volume was distributed in 1972, and over the 23 years through 1993, under the leadership of Dr Lorenzo Tomatis, 59 IARC Monographs were completed. During 1977-1979 the author was privileged to lead the program for Volumes 15-22, and participated in the pioneering development of the @entity16365 Preamble and Categories of Evidence. During this era other Chiefs of the IARC Monographs included Claus Agthe, Harri Vainio, Antero Aitio, and Julian Wilbourn. Since then (starting with Volume 62: 1995), a new attitude seems to have pervaded the IARC Monographs program, resulting in an increasing influence of or partiality for industry and a diminishing dedication to public and occupational health and safety concerns, and for primary prevention. Some of this attitude comes from an apparent misguided scientific zest prematurely to endorse purported or hypothetical mechanisms of chemical @entity105 or modes of action of chemicals causing @entity5 in experimental animals. These speculations are in turn used cavalierly to discount the value of experimental evidence for predicting probable carcinogenicity to @entity1 . Most often this is accomplished by opining that the mechanism(s) of carcinogenicity in animals would not be operative in @entity1 . End of explanation. Examples whereby the IARC has recently "down-graded" or "under-graded" the available evidence of carcinogenicity include: @entity334 ; @entity12472 ; @entity16748 -based dyes; @entity8335 , @entity1044 ( @entity1044 ); @entity5248 ; glass wool insulation; MtBE [ @entity7388 ]; @entity26244 ; @entity8021 ; sunlamps and sunbeds (use of); @entity4965 ; @entity13136 ; and others more inclusively mentioned in the text and tables. Further impeding or compromising public health, chemicals causing site-specific @entity5 in animals attendant with calculi/precipitate in the urinary bladder, @entity5651 and thyroid gland, kidney and alpha-2mu globulin, peroxisome proliferation and @entity96 , and cell proliferation in general have led the IARC to discount these car- cinogenic effects. To stem this tide at the IARC, new leadership, with more objectivity and public health perspective, is needed.
