To V.J.Klein; you are absolutely right; in my post I muddled the words Hazard and Risk - please substitute the one for the other in what I wrote, and my argument remains exactly the same. Thank you for pointing this out. The science of detecting hazard is peer-reviewed (animal experiments, reviews of epidemiological studies) therefore IARC does not set its own rules; they are set by published scientific research, which I do not believe is in Ivo's CV. In his columns, Ivo has made it quite clear that his agenda is not scientific rigour tout court, but the removal or reduction of any regulation of what he calls, for reasons that are not entirely clear,  "capitalism".   Trump's administration is currently slashing and burning regulation in the USA, with disastrous results, to which specialist scientists affected and communities exposed to risk attest daily. Smart, as opposed to dumb regulation is a good thing, but to me Ivo fiddles whilst Rome burns. He's smart - so why is he doing this?