The smell of bacon filled the air as I poured myself a cup of joe. I scanned the articles of the day on my phone. I took a sip of my hot coffee as I noticed a headline NEW STUDY: Coffee Can Kill You. I quickly scrolled past that piece of obvious ignorance. If coffee kills people, I thought, it will be a good way to go.
Coffee is quite possibly the most popular drink in America. It is woven into our entire culture. We have coffee shops on every corner. Could it be a deadly killer? I decided to read the study and do a little digging, learning first that a taxpayer-funded international body called the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) was responsible for the coffee claims.
I was even more dismayed as I found a similar claim from them that bacon causes cancer. That was about all I could take. I was literally raised on a pig farm. We grew those little piglets up and we took them to market. All the while, my 90 year old grandparents ate bacon every day and washed it down with a side of coffee.
You can imagine my confusion.
I was happy to discover that IARC acts like an innocuous non-political research group trying to find the causes of cancer, while it is actually a very politically motivated propaganda tool for the crony environmentalists of government.
I was even more relieved to discover that IARC’s claims that my beloved cup of coffee was deadly were largely debunked and regarded as poor science. IARC itself recently announced that coffee and tea do not cause cancer, but you might get it if you drink them really hot. My breakfast further improved even more as I also discovered junk science was behind the assault on bacon. While eating bacon I was relieved to read a New York Post piece titled Bacon Causes Cancer when Pigs Fly.
I was thankful that two of my favorite items of food and drink were spared, however, I became a little furious that another unaccountable government agency was allowed to operate as a scientific group. that the truth is that IARC is not as interested in science as it is in wielding governmental power to do the environmentalist bidding of the left. The cozy relationship existing between the IARC and environmentalists in promoting scientific scaremongering is a great reason why U.S. taxpayers should not be funding this bunk.
IARC is now going after a common weed killer, glyphosate, and claiming it causes cancer. After the bacon and coffee thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if glyphosate is drinkable, safe and delicious. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and The National Toxicology Program (NTP) are denying a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to provide documents and emails pertinent to IARC’s cancer causing claims. What are they hiding? There was an older study from the EPA that showed the weed killer to be safe that has since been removed from the EPA’s web site. It reappeared on September 16th as an “issue paper” confirming that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” and laid the issue to rest – or not, as now an external group of scientists will spend more taxpayer dollars pointlessly vetting the study. If only IARC’s study had been subjected to the same kind of nitpicky review...
Basically, it boils down to environmentalists trying to get their way by creating fake science. It is even worse when you realize they are using taxpayer money to do it. IARC is nothing more than a political tool for the environmentalists. Science is not on their side, but when has that ever stopped a liberal with an agenda?
Congress should defund the IARC. International organizations more concerned about precautionary principle politics then about scientific results can create all the junk studies they want, just not at U.S. taxpayer expense. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) would be wise to list the HHS line item that funds IARC as an area to slash spending to save taxpayers some cash.