Paul Driessen
A growing problem for modern
industrialized Western societies is the legion of government agencies and
unelected bureaucrats and allied nongovernmental organizations that seem
impervious to transparency, accountability or reform. Their expansive power often
controls public perceptions and public policies.
Prominent among them are those
involved in climate change research and energy policy. In recent years, they
have adjusted data to fit the dangerous manmade climate chaos narrative, while
doling out billions of taxpayer dollars for research that supports this
perspective, and basing dire predictions and policy demands primarily on climate models
that assume carbon dioxide now drives climate and weather (and the sun, water
vapor, ocean currents and other powerful natural forces have been relegated to
minor roles).
Reform is essential. Meanwhile,
another troubling example underscores the scope of the problem and the
difficulties Congress and other government administrators face when they try to
rein in rogue agencies.
In November 2017, the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology sent the UN’s
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) a letter raising questions about scientific bias, secrecy and
corruption at the agency. When IARC obfuscated the issues, the committee sent a second letter, seeking answers within a week.
Otherwise, the Committee said, it
would consider “whether the values of scientific integrity and transparency are
reflected in IARC monographs and if future expenditures of federal taxpayer
dollars need to continue.” The United States is the IARC monograph program’s
biggest contributor, having given it nearly $50 million to date.
Agency director Dr. Christopher Wild
bided his time four weeks before replying (many would say rather testily and
condescendingly) and concluding: “IARC would be grateful if the House Science
Committee would take all necessary measures to ensure that the immunity
of the Organization, its officials and experts, as well as the inviolability
of its archives and documents, are fully respected.” [emphasis added]
Refusing to be cowed, on February 6
the committee held a hearing, “In Defense of Scientific Integrity: Examining
the IARC Monograph Programme and Glyphosate Review.” Evidence presented
revealed that the monograph program is an antiquated approach that simply tries
to determine from laboratory studies whether a particular chemical might cause
cancer in test animals, even if only at ridiculously high levels that no human
would or could ever be exposed to in the real world.
IARC performs no actual risk
assessments that examine the potency of a substance to humans or the
level of exposure at which the substance might actually have an adverse
effect on people. It thus places bacon, sausage, plutonium and sunlight
together in Group 1, its highest risk category: “definitely carcinogenic.” This
provides no useful information from a public health perspective, but does give
ammunition to activists who want to stoke fear and get chemicals they dislike
banned.
IARC’s Group 2B carcinogens include
caffeic acid, which is found in coffee, tea, and numerous healthy, must-eat
fruits and vegetables, including apples, blueberries, broccoli, kale and
onions. This group also includes acetaldehyde, which is found in bread, ginkgo
balboa and aloe vera, lead Science Committee witness Dr. Timothy Pastoor noted in his testimony.
As Pastor also pointed out during
the hearing, countless chemicals could theoretically cause cancer in humans at
extremely high doses – but are completely harmless at levels encountered in our
daily lives.
But it’s not just IARC’s overall
approach that raises questions. As investigative journalists David Zaruk and Kate Kelland discovered, serious allegations have also been
raised regarding the integrity of IARC’s review process. These include evidence
that IARC deleted or manipulated data – and covered up major conflicts of
interest by agency panel members who were employed by environmental activists
and mass tort plaintiff attorneys who are targeting the very chemicals the
panelists were reviewing and judging.
IARC’s latest quarry is glyphosate,
the world’s most widely used herbicide. The principal ingredient in the weed
killer RoundUp, glyphosate is vital in modern agriculture, especially no-till farming.
The European Food Safety Authority,
European Chemicals Agency, German Institute for Risk Assessment, US
Environmental Protection Agency and other experts all found that glyphosate is
safe and non-carcinogenic. So did the 25-year, multi-agency US Agricultural Health Study (AHS), which analyzed data on more
than 89,000 farmers, commercial applicators, other glyphosate users and their
spouses.
IARC alone says glyphosate is likely
a cancer-causing agent – contradicting every other regulatory and reputable
scientific body around the world. How could it possibly reach such a different
conclusion?
According to Zaruk, Kelland and
committee members, IARC deliberately ignored the AHS analysis. The chairman of
the IARC working group on glyphosate later admitted in a sworn deposition that
this study would have “altered IARC’s analysis.”
When an animal pathology report
clearly said researchers “unanimously” agreed glyphosate had not caused
abnormal growths in mice they had studied, IARC deleted the problematical
sentence.
In other cases, IARC panelists
inserted new statistical analyses that effectively reversed a study’s original
finding, or quietly changed critical language exonerating the herbicide.
Meanwhile, Dr. Christopher Portier,
the “consulting expert” for the working group that labeled glyphosate as
“probably” cancer-causing, admitted in his own sworn testimony that – just a
few days after IARC announced its guilty verdict – he signed a contract to
serve as consultant to a law firm that is suing the chemical’s manufacturer
(Monsanto) based on that verdict. Portier collected at least $160,000 just for
his initial preparatory work.
Adding to the confusion and
collusion, say Committee members, Linda Birnbaum’s $690-million-per-year
National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (in the National
Institutes of Health) has been collaborating with the same government agencies,
pressure groups, trial lawyers and yet another anti-chemical activist
organization, the Ramazzini Institute in Italy.
This is not science. It is
corruption distortion and fraud – supported by our tax dollars and used to get
important chemicals off the market.
The end result, if not the goal, is
to undermine public confidence in science-based risk assessments,
lend credibility to activist campaigns claiming numerous chemicals contaminate
our foods and poison our bodies, and enable predatory tort lawyers to get rich
suing manufacturers and driving them into bankruptcy.
Dr. Wild’s letters clearly suggest
that IARC views the Science Committee’s concerns about the agency’s lack of
scientific integrity and transparency as irrelevant – as a mere irritant, a
minor threat to his agency’s unbridled power … and something the US government
will ultimately do nothing to correct.
We will soon find out whether IARC
is right – or if Congress is finally ready to play hardball with this unethical
UN agency.
It’s also an important test for
congressional oversight, spine and intestinal fortitude on holding other deep
state agencies accountable for how they spend our money, what kind of science
or pseudo-science they support and conduct, and how they will affect or even
determine the public policies that in so many ways are the foundation of our
economy, livelihoods and living standards.
PS: The Science Committee has also
discovered that Vladimir Putin’s Internet Research Agency engaged in
significant hacking, to inflame social media and instigate discord over US energy development and climate change policies
– while Putin cronies laundered millions to fund radical green
organizations. That too must be addressed by Congress and administrative
agencies, including the Justice Department.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For
A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author
of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.
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