Animal rightists jump on shaky cancer report

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Forget that the mainstream media quickly put a less alarmist perspective on the late October report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declaring that processed meat is a carcinogen. The inappropriately named animal rights group Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM) immediately petitioned the  U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove hot dogs and other processed meats from its National School Lunch program. "Keeping hot dogs, pepperoni and other USDA processed meat commodities off school lunch trays is a step in the right direction," says a news release from the organization, which has very few, if any, physicians associated with it.

The same organization put a similar petition forward in 2006, notes the I-Watch report, which monitors animal agriculture issues. I-Watch is published in Ontario.

The IARC, a wing of the World Heath Organization, concluded that the consumption of processed meats was associated with small increases in the risk of cancer in the studies it reviewed. Its report also noted that eating meat has known health benefits. The PCRM, on the other hand, promotes a completely meatless lifestyle. BP