CAMPCO protests ‘data manipulation’ to project arecanut as carcinogenic by WHO

Workers grading arecanut at the warehouse of the CAMPCO in Mangaluru, Karnataka.
| Photo Credit: MANJUNATH HS

The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Limited (CAMPCO), Mangaluru has alleged that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), under the World Health Organization (WHO), has manipulated data to project that arecanut is carcinogenic.

The CAMPCO is a multi-State cooperative society of Karnataka and Kerala where arecanut is widely cultivated by lakhs of farmers.

On November 25, in a letter to Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilisers Jagat Prakash Nadda, the co-operative’s president A. Kishore Kumar Kodgi sought urgent action against the alleged data manipulation.

He alleged that WHO-IARC misrepresented research findings to wrongly implicate arecanut as carcinogenic. Though original studies primarily focused on tobacco, arecanut was unjustifiably included with manipulated sample sizes and misleading titles.

Data manipulation?

“There seems to be a manipulation of data, as the original study reportedly involved around 1,000 samples, whereas the WHO-IARC report inexplicably cited over 11,000 samples,” he said.

Mr. Kodgi said, in page 126 of the ‘IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans’ (Vol 85 published in 2004), there is a Table No. 53 wherein the work of Gupta et al., 1998 was cited.

In the original paper of Gupta et al, published in the National Medical Journal of India in 1998, the title of the table is ‘Prevalence of tobacco use among subjects with oral submucous fibrosis (OSF)’. However, arecanut is added in the title of the table in the IARC Monograph, and it was changed to ‘Survey of arecanut and tobacco use and oral submucous fibrosis, Gujarat, India’.

Further, in the original table (Gupta et al 1998)., the sample size in arecanut use was 1,786 and total sample size was 5,018. But in the table given in the IARC Monograph, the sample sizes mentioned are 11,786 and 15,018, respectively, he said.

“In addition, in the original paper, the authors had put mawa, tobacco and smoking habits under arecanut use. The fact is that mawa is a mixture of arecanut, tobacco and slaked lime. Then why Gupta et al included mawa, tobacco and smoking habits under arecanut use, and how come WHO / IARC did not notice such glaring mistakes. This creates doubts on the authenticity of such reports,” Mr. Kodgi said.

Farmers distressed

“This manipulation has caused significant distress among the farming community and has led to erroneous conclusions about arecanut’s safety,” the letter states.

“On behalf of India’s arecanut farmers, we want to say that there have been efforts to show arecanut in bad light through such manipulation of research data. Since arecanut is the lifeline of lakhs of farmers in the arecanut-growing regions of the country, such manipulated data creates apprehension on the crop itself impacting their livelihood. Many people, who are unaware of such manipulation, tend to believe the data mentioned by WHO-IARC as true facts. We earnestly request your intervention to protect the arecanut farmers from such propaganda of international bodies through manipulated data,” he wrote in the letter.

Advanced research sought

In a press release issued on November 26, the CAMPCO said that ithas already requested government support for advanced research through premier institutions, such as AIIMS-New Delhi, CSIR-CFTRI-Mysuru, and the Indian Institute of Science-Bengaluru.

CAMPCO is optimistic that the government’s intervention will pave the way for fair representation of arecanut and ensure the livelihood of farmers reliant on its cultivation, Mr. Kodgi said.