Litigation city: World Health Organization affiliate classifies gasoline as ‘carcinogenic’
By
Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.
|
July 19th, 2025
|
In a move that will boost the spirits of trial lawyers and climate activists the world over, a branch of the United Nations-affiliated World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified “automotive gasoline and some oxygenated gasoline additives” as Group 1 “carcinogenic” compounds.
The agency is taking action as the Trump administration reverses Biden-era plans to phase out the production of gas-powered cars and trucks in favor of electric vehicles amid slumping sales of EVs in the U.S. and Europe. With regulatory actions against fossil fuels in the name of combating climate change losing steam, the research agency’s designation promises to open a new line of attack for green energy advocates, this one in the courtroom.
Based in Lyon, France, the International Agency for Research on Cancer is tasked by the WHO to investigate the causes of cancer. It conducts hazard evaluations and publishes its findings in The Monographs. For decades, the agency’s evaluations, assembled by its monograph working groups, have served as the basis for litigation against whatever party or parties are deemed responsible for producing the substance designated as carcinogenic.
https://www.cfact.org/2025/07/19/litigation-city-world-health-organization-affiliate-classifies-gasoline-as-carcinogenic/
