Prof. Geoffrey Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine New York, USA, observes that in its assessments of
carcinogenicity, IARC places the greatest value on studies in humans, that is,
evidence from epidemiologic studies. Interestingly, as per IARC’s own account, the
evidence from epidemiological studies shows no indication of a positive
association with any cancer with coffee. So, the obvious question is, why
wasn’t coffee reassigned to Group 4: “unlikely to cause cancer in humans”? Yet IARC chose to place coffee in Group 3,
which essentially meant “The agent is not classifiable as to its
carcinogenicity to humans”. Prof. Geoffrey Kabat observes that IARC’s process
appears to be afflicted with a deeply-ingrained double standard. He opines that IARC’s assessments
are placing too much weight on isolated findings that appear to suggest a risk,
while ignoring more solid studies that do not support the existence of risk.
Interestingly,
IARC stated in its monograph that “coffee may protect against cancer." But
then it went on to justify its designation of “unclassifiable as to its
carcinogenicity in humans.” This flagrant contradiction highlights the problems
with IARC’s process, its classification scheme, and the messages it puts out to
the public.
Looking into
various controversies created over the years through its reports on coffee,
meat and cell phones tec., Prof. Geoffrey Kabat observes that IARC is motivated
more by the drive for publicity than by a concern for communicating useful
information to the public (Courtesy: IARC Lets Coffee Off The Hook But Only
Deepens The Confusion, Jun 18, 2016, Forbes magazine).
Unfortunately, Areca nut and its products are appeared to be the victims of such reports by IARC. Due to the stature and clout of IARC, Indian Govt. is forced to initiate action to curb the consumption of Areca nut. At the same time, any possible ban or the restriction on the consumption of areca nut or its products is going to threaten the lively hood of millions of areca farmers across India.
From this, it is amply clear that there is a necessity to evaluate and scrutinize all the reports of IARC on areca nut and Pan/Tambula from several perspectives. This becomes all the more important in case of areca nut, due to the diverse method of consumption (areca nut of different maturity, different ways of processing and different adjuncts including tobacco), frequency of consumption by an individual, complex mechanism of metabolism of areca nut constituents in human body (yet to be elucidated completely) etc. Being a member of IARC, Indian Government must initiate such action in liaison with IARC.
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