Friday, August 8, 2008

Cheney's crowd as your dieticians

Here's a story for you.
The American Institute for Cancer Research has released a report titled Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective. In the report they make a direct tie between meat and various forms of cancer, highlighting that processed meats in particular create a cancer risk no matter how minimal your intake of these meats might be.





The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has latched onto the report, and is using it to support their quest to get processed meats out of school cafeterias. But, this has ruffled the feathers of the Center for Consumer Freedom and the American Meat Institute, which, like the tobacco companies, don't care if their products cause cancer, and will fight to the death for their right to keep selling you carcinogen rich meat because that is how they make their money.

Caught in the middle of this feud between the PCRM and the two meat lobby groups, the AICR published this news release. The release highlights the scientific credibility of all researchers involved in the Food, Nutrition... report, and reiterates this point - The evidence on processed meat is even more clear-cut than that on red meat, and the data do not show any level of intake that can confidently be shown not to be associated with risk, and concludes with this passage:

We at AICR wish the multi-billion-dollar meat industry would take the money it uses to attack the objective conclusions of independent experts and devote it to researching why diets high in processed meats are so consistently associated with troubling increases in colorectal cancer risk. With such efforts, it may prove possible to isolate the particular cause or causes and make processed meats safer.

In the meantime, no amount of meat industry spin can change the fact that the exhaustive AICR report has been embraced by the international scientific and medical community and represents overwhelming scientific consensus.


Any time you read that cars idling in drive-throughs is good for your five year old, or that there is no connection between meat and cancer, just picture Dick Cheney pointing his finger in your face and telling you these "truths". Hopefully that will scare you silly and inspire you to read a little more until you figure out who to really trust.

8 comments:

Ben said...

Conversely, I was quite happy (while jonesing for a doughnut a while back) to find out that Tim's are all vegetarian (I expected lard for some reason).

Tracy H. said...

Thanks for this post! The response by the AICR is fantastic!

klompengirl said...

Great post Tuco :)

Question for FixedXorBroken -- are you sure TH doughnuts don't have eggs in them? I've been avoiding them too!...... realistically, I know I should continue to avoid them, but I'm just curious about the ingredients beyond "no lard"

VeganHeartDoc said...

Love the AICR response!
I just might try that vegan chicken thing at KFC if it was offered, just out of curiousity, but when I desire takeout, I still frequent my local vegan restaurant.

Marathon Maritza said...

Thanks for the info on the lamp that you left on my blog. I'm looking into it.

This post is great, love that the AICR didn't back down!

Also thought you'd like this article: http://realitysandwich.com/dear_america_are_you_really_going_to_eat_that

It's a cool website in general.

Ben said...

I'm sure that there are eggs. I am a lowly vegetarian, so that is okay for me.

Anonymous said...

We at AICR wish the multi-billion-dollar meat industry would take the money it uses to attack the objective conclusions of independent experts and devote it to researching why diets high in processed meats are so consistently associated with troubling increases in colorectal cancer risk.

This is a nice, but slightly deluded, sentiment. Why would an industry pay to prove its products are unsafe? Just like with your Tim Horton doughnuts, it's up to the consumer to eat or not eat.

I enjoy your blog. :)

Oliver Meyn said...

You've almost certainly read or heard about this before, but I've recently started reading The China Study and it is the most compelling and thoroughly researched case for veganism I've ever heard. The links between animal protein and cancer, never mind most of the killer "diseases of affluence", are staggering.

And yeah, fuck Tim Hortons. The coffee is always burnt anyway.