In September 2000, BAMM asked the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to downgrade ethyl acrylate to Category 3, "Inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity." Such action by IARC would be consistent with the May 2000 decision of the U.S. National Toxicology Program removing ethyl acrylate from the Report on Carcinogens. Details on that decision can be found in "The U.S. National Toxicology Program Removes Ethyl Acrylate From Its Carcinogens List."

In 1986, IARC listed ethyl acrylate as a Group 2B, "possible carcinogen" based on the published scientific data available at that time. In the intervening years, BAMM and the U.S. National Toxicology Program, as well as others, have conducted extensive additional scientific research demonstrating that the mechanism causing forestomach tumors in rats and mice after chronic gavage dosing — the basis for the original IARC and NTP decisions — is not relevant to man.

BAMM understands that IARC plans in 2003 to review a number of chemicals that cause forestomach tumors in laboratory animals and expects ethyl acrylate to be included in that review pursuant to BAMM's September 2000 request. If downgraded to Category 3, ethyl acrylate would be classified as follows:

"Inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity: The available studies are of insufficient quality, consistency or statistical power to permit a conclusion regarding the presence or absence of a causal association between exposure and cancer, or no data on cancer in humans are available."