After an international agency made an announcement about risk of eating processed meats, many media outlets went hog wild. That included the broadcast networks which hyped the “troubling new warning” and ordered people to “cut down on that red meat.”
ABC and NBC evening news programming hyped the “unprecedented “warning,” and the decision to put them in the “same category” of carcinogens as smoking and asbestos, even though both of those are far more dangerous. The following day, NBC simultaneously told people not to “panic,” but urged them to “drastically” cut meat consumption.
On Oct. 26, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (part of the World Health Organization) stated that they had classified processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans” and that “each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.” IARC could not say red meat causes cancer, saying only that it is “probably carcinogenic.” The agency did not tell people stop eating either kind of meat.
The press release expressed stated that “For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed,” according to Dr. Kurt Straif of IARC. [Emphasis added]
But the broadcast networks couldn’t wait to scare the public away from bacon and hot dogs. The media have pushed food scare stories for many years including warnings about apples, eggs, fats and many other things. All three evening news programs led with that story on Oct. 26. NBC’s Today continued the scare on Oct. 27. ABC World News hyped the IARC statement calling it an “eye-opening new cancer warning.”
“Hot dogs, processed meat and bacon, now put in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos,” World News said. ABC also warned people not to grill their meats “because that releases carcinogens.”
NBC Nightly News called it an “unprecedented warning” about eating things like bacon and hot dogs and also mentioned they were put in the same category as smoking and asbestos.
Even after interviewing a nutritionist who pointed out that moderate consumption of red meat is “healthy,” NBC’s Anne Thompson implied dietary changes were necessary by closing her story with “Is this new report enough to change the all-American diet?”
Today sent mixed messages on Oct. 27, telling meat-lovers not to “panic,” but then consulting a dietician who agreed that people should be “drastically cutting down how much processed meat and red meat they eat.”
Keri Glassman, the dietician, went beyond the IARC’s own statements saying people should be “limiting” red meat consumption and “limiting or taking out altogether” processed meats and “focusing on plant-based foods.”
None of those broadcasts told their viewers how much processed or red meat people consume on average -- a fact that would have been helpful in assessing the risk and need for consumption changes.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2012, USDA found the average American consumes 71.2 pounds of red meat (any kind) each year. That comes out to just 0.195 lbs per day (less than a quarter pound hamburger) or just 3.12 ounces on average. Only some portion of that would include processed meats. The IARC announcement indicated that more than 1.8 ounces of processed meat eaten daily would increase the risk of cancer a little bit.
CBS Evening News did a better job than ABC and NBC, putting the risk in perspective and told consumers to make their own decisions. The story pointed out that the average risk for colon cancer is 5 percent. The WHO findings meant that if you eat a 50 gram (a little less than 2 ounces) portion of processed meat EVERY day for life, the risk increases to 6 percent risk.
Anchor Scott Pelley asked CBS chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook why processed meat was being placed in the same category as tobacco.
LaPook tried to clear things up saying, “This has led to so much confusion today. Being in that highest risk category means you have a substance and there’s good, strong evidence that it can cause cancer. It says absolutely nothing about the degree to which it increases that risk.”
The liberal media love to latch onto a good food scare, even when products are totally safe. In 1989, CBS 60 Minutes caused a panic over apples claiming a chemical used on them (Alar) was “the most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply.” Soon, many other media outlets followed suit. The Los Angeles Times called that coverage “completely alarmist,” in 1994.
Food police groups have called for (and sometimes gotten) product bans or stricter regulations of trans fats, GMOs, food dyes, bisphenol-A and more, all with the help of the news media
ABC went on a crusade in 2012 against lean, finely textured beef, repeatedly calling the product “pink slime” and celebrating grocers who pulled the product. The product was safe and had been eaten for years, but the media went after it. The main producer of LFTB had to shut down three of its four plants and cut more than half of its staff when demand collapsed.
Alatheia Larsen and Michael Greibok contributed research to this story.
