The report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) claiming that processed meat could cause cancer and red meat is ‘likely’ to be carcinogen is part of a series of studies “thrown out on the market, without any discrimination and without scientific rigor,” the Romanian Meat Association (ARC).
“We express our indignation against the ease with which these studies are thrown on the market, without any discrimination and without scientific rigor. Referring to Romanian consumers, such alarmist information is only sending confusing messages on a food market which it is already affected by unfair competition from tax evaders,” said the ARC president, Radu Timis, in a statement.
ARC agrees that consumption of poor quality meat with unauthorized additives, not respecting the rules of food safety, improperly stored is harmful to health.
“This is the real danger to the health of Romanians and ARC has been actively involved to remove such products from the market, including pushing for the VAT cut for meat and which applied as of June 1, 2015. This kind of study that generalizes risks without a real base merely cancels the beneficial effects of a 9% VAT rate on foodstuff the Romanian processors and the population waited for so many years,” Timis said.
Bacon, ham, and salami have received the ignominious label of foods that cause cancer, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer released on Monday. They’re part of the processed meat group, which has now been “classified as carcinogenic to humans, based on sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer.”
Reviewing a body of scientific literature spanning more than 800 studies, the IARC team were confident in asserting a causal link between processed meat — that which has been cured, salted, fermented, smoked, or otherwise “transformed … to enhance flavour or improve preservation” — and the occurrence of cancer in those who consume it.
Red meat was also subject to the IARC’s scrutiny, however the conclusion there is far less definitive, with the agency asserting only that it’s “probably” carcinogenic to humans.