I want a better list than the IARC because their Group 1 has substances like benzine and asbestos along side things like Alcoholic beverages, Chinese-style Salted fish and processed meat.
I want a better list than the IARC because their Group 1 has substances like benzine and asbestos along side things like Alcoholic beverages, Chinese-style Salted fish and processed meat.
I went looking for such a better list. One thing I found is this, for drinking water contaminants:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584401...
It would be nice to have a list like this for the Group 1 substances, I mean something that shows the amount vs. the risk and the number of cases caused by the substance.
For benzene in drinking water it has 0.15 μg/L corresponding to 10e−6 lifetime cancer risk. Estimated number of cancer cases from benzene in drinking water in the USA is 1 vs. 43500 from arsenic.
The evidence is very strong for all of those. They should be in Group 1.
the evidence may be strong, but the effect size compared to the relative dosing shows they are probably misclassified.
The IARC grouping isn't for effect size though, it's for certainty about carcinogenicity outcomes with exposure. It's not going to tell you how much exposure you need to get cancer. There are different measurements for that.
IARC Grouping Levels: Group 1 - We are certain this will cause cancer Group 2 - Probable it causes cancer Group 3 - We don't know if it causes cancer Group 4 - Unlikely to cause cancer
So when looking at something like tobacco smoking, we have lots of evidence that people who smoke get lung cancer. So it doesn't fit in group 2,3,4. So it goes in group one.
For scales that measure exposure needed for negative outcomes, most of the time these are for chemicals that are/have been used in work environments. So EPA (and probably OSHA) has a threshold scale for benzene, but not for tobacco cigarettes. Most of the time, there aren't MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) for consumer products like cigarettes.
But really, what is more likely - a person getting cancer from tobacco smoking or benzene? I would offer that tobacco is more of a danger than benzene d/t the easily available nature of it. So in practice, tobacco is more of a danger than benzene.
That is why the categories are absurd in practical usage.
Benzene will definitely fuck you up faster and more thoroughly at similar dosages than cigarettes.
Having a glass of wine a day is extremely unlikely to cause any detectable negative health outcomes.
Replace the alcohol in that wine with benzene (21ml/glass give or take), and it would not play out the same way.
The LD50 of benzene is 980 mg/kg; drinking that much benzene every day would undoubtedly be fatal