Viewpoint: How trial lawyers rigged IARC’s cancer monograph program to fuel lawsuits targeting glyphosate, other chemicals

David Zaruk | September 4, 2019

In February 2019, I released my most damning exposé on corruption inside the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), revealing four egregious scandals in one article. As the research was thorough, the article was quite long. It was also a sub-section of a complex series on how US tort law firms are manipulating scientists and the regulatory research process. I have been advised to rewrite the content outside of the SlimeGate series vocabulary putting them into shorter articles. So the content of that exposé has been broken down into four separate scandals presented with clearer vocabulary and images.

IARC has a process for determining which monographs (studies) to produce and publish, based on advice from an Advisory Committee of external experts who establish a five-year priorities research program.

Part one of this series will show that the then head of the IARC Monograph Program, Kurt Straif, not only did not follow the official process, he knowingly made decisions on which monographs to conduct based on the interests of US tort law firms who use the IARC assessments as (often the only) evidence in lucrative lawsuits against companies.

This exposé on benzene will show how Kurt Straif succumbed to pressure from American litigation consultants (scientists who are paid by law firms to provide evidence and testify in court) to hold a further (third) monograph working group meeting on benzene. IARC was complicit in producing a document, without justifiable scientific reason, for the sole purpose of having it serve as evidence in US lawsuits where it would otherwise be too difficult for tort lawyers to win cases worth hundreds of millions of dollars in fees...........To Read More.....

My Take - The question this now.  Who's going to jail over this?  First of all, it's clear to me someone absolutely needs to be sued.  It's also clear to me this falls under RICO, and needs to be prosecuted by the Justice Department, since these lawsuits took place in American courts, conducted by corrupt American attorneys.  Someone absolutely needs to go to jail over this. 

However, this isn't anything new.  Scientific corruption in favor of this kind of thing has been going on since Richard Nixon created the EPA, the Endangered Species Act and a host of other "green" laws and regulations. 

This is outrageous, but when compared to the scientific corruption regarding climate change, this is chump change.  If integrity is to be restored, warming "scientists" and their co-conspirators need to be sent to prison also.