摘要：This paper is dedicated to Lorenzo Tomatis, former director of the International Agency
for Research on Cancer (IARC ), promoter of prevention principles with a precautionary approach,
supported by an important scientific foundation. He has recommended an appropriate consideration
of both “false negatives” and “false positives” errors in the evaluation of epidemiological and
experimental data on toxicological and carcinogenic risk. The current rules for IARC Monographs
preparation include both a full transparency of the data used and of the possible conflicts of interest
of the experts involved. Tomatis has also underlined that “Dismissing animal carcinogenicity findings
would lead to human cases as the only means of demonstrating carcinogenicity of environmental
agents. This is an unacceptable public health policy”. The main role of experimental studies is
presently included in both the new preamble of IARC Monographs and the method adopted for the
World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines for low-dose carcinogenic risk assessment.
