In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) designated processed meats (hot dogs, bacon, ham, sausage, cold cuts) as Group 1 carcinogens, a “certain” cause of cancer, and fresh red meat (beef, pork, lamb) as Group 2A, or “probable” carcinogens.

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This IARC announcement was an historic event. For the first time ever, a global health organization had declared a major component of all human diets throughout history to be a likely carcinogen. Yet to support this 2015 claim, the IARC released a mere two-page summary of its findings, in Lancet Oncology. […]

Four years after the IARC’s 2015 decision, the most rigorous, comprehensive reviews of red meat ever conducted were published in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine. […]

Despite this major review, Bernard Stewart recently wrote to me [Nina Teicholz]: “To my knowledge, the IARC… [has] not been subject to adverse criticism or made aware of a perceived need for additional information to justify the outcomes made, either at the time or since.” Stewart did not reply to further emails asking him about the contradictory conclusions of the GRADE reviews.

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