Warning labels on hotdogs

Last week a lawsuit was placed against several major processed food corporations in the US, due to their failure to include warning labels on products which increase the risk of dietary cancers. The suit appears to have been placed on behalf of The Cancer Project, an offshoot of Dr Neil Barnard's Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Many vegans will be familiar with the PCRM as they fund and produce scientific research into vegan diets and the risks associated with consuming meat and dairy products. I cannot take their research seriously as a result, not because they will never publish any findings which indicate that meat or dairy is not harmful; but because I automatically disregard anything produced by meat industry lobby groups such as Meat and Livestock Australia which will never publish material that indicates their products are harmful. Instead I always look for independent research and try and ensure there are no biases or conflicts of interest involved.

But this is not the issue I have today. I want to point out this report from the LA Times which described the lawsuit. Journalist Jerry Hirsch states that the lawsuit cited the American Institute for Cancer Research's recommendation that people "avoid processed meats", and counters this by citing a Harvard review which found no relationship between cancer and processed meats. The difference here is that while the Harvard review looked at 14 different investigations into diet and cancer, the AICR spent 5 years looking at over 7000 studies before they recommended that consumption of red meats should be limited to two serves per week and processed meats should be avoided.

While acknowledging the associations between processed meats and cancer, the AICR has distanced itself from the lawsuit with this press release.

References:

World Cancer Research Fund / American Institute for Cancer Research.

Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective.

Washington, DC: AICR, 2007

Click here to read the executive summary.