Briefing: Extent of processed meat cancer risk is exaggerated

There is no comparison between smoking and eating processed meat

The message from last week’s IARC report? If you don’t like processed meat, don’t eat it. If you do, make it an occasional treat

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the anti-cancer arm of the United Nations World Health Organisation, stated last week that processed meats (eg sausages, hot dogs, salami etc) are carcinogenic (ie cancer causing), and that in fact all red meat might be carcinogenic. This important report has been widely misinterpreted.

What IARC said last week was not that they had discovered that processed meat causes cancer. No, they stated that they ...