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Under the Influence 

Is industry becoming an inside player at the world's leading research center on carcinogens?

n 1993, an officer of the Philip Morris corporation wrote a memo that laid out, in elaborate detail, a plan to influence a prestigious cancer research center. IARC -- the International Agency for Research on Cancer -- had undertaken a study on the health effects of secondhand smoke, and the memo prescribed ways to get the study delayed, diluted, or shelved. But there was a problem: IARC's reputation was extremely solid. "Our scientists go as far as to state that IARC is virtually unassailable," the author noted gloomily.

Today, according to some scientists, that reputation is no longer so strong. These critics charge that IARC, an arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), has begun inviting the input of scientists with direct and indirect financial links to the very industries that stand to lose or gain enormously from its findings. IARC has long been considered the premier research center for identifying carcinogens, and such a decision could undermine its credibility and, potentially, its science.

The critics include two former top officials of IARC itself.

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