Facing mounting criticism from multiple sides, the embattled International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a semi-independent branch of the U.N.'s World Health Organization, has announced that it is searching for a new leader.  The search is starting at a time when the agency has hit its lowest point yet, as Congress has ramped up investigations into the way IARC carries out its assessments of the carcinogenicity of everyday substances. To save any vestiges of the agency's credibility, the new director needs to ensure that the agency carries out several key reforms, using all available scientific evidence to make its evaluations and communicating its findings clearly.  At the moment, this simply isn't the case – and the agency's assessments have more often left the American public confused. Since 1971, IARC has examined nearly 1,000 agents.  It has been the subject of attacks for the way it carries out these evaluations – not...(Read Full Post)