Bacon and ham sold in the UK should carry cigarette-style labels warning that chemicals in them cause bowel cancer, scientists say.
Their demand comes as they criticise successive British governments for doing “virtually nothing” to reduce the risk from nitrites in the decade since they were found to definitely cause cancer.
Saturday marks a decade since the World Health Organization in October 2015 declared processed meat declared processed meat to be carcinogenic to humans, putting it in the same category as tobacco and asbestos.
We may as well flatten the whole planet to eliminate the risk of falling down stairs.
I hate how far people go to safety pad the whole planet when an ounce of personality responsibility is all that’s needed.
Except personal responsibility is impossible when people don’t know that xyz food causes cancer.
That’s why they’re asking for a label. So that people can make an informed choice. That’s literally their entire point.
My problem is that these labels don’t differentiate the levels at which demonstrable harm occurs. I’m not against labels, I’m against bad labels
Putting something that’s harmful at the parts per million(ppm) level in the exact same category as something that’s harmful in the parts per billion(ppb) level is counterproductive.
This results in people treating incredibly harmful compounds that are dangerous in the ppb range the same as compounds that are dangerous in the ppm or even ppt(thousand) range.
Including minor and major carcinogens in the same label makes people think they’re safer than they are.
It’s why prop65 warnings are a joke and ignored by almost all consumers.
If we’re going to use a single label that doesn’t differentiate the level of harm then we need to save it for the most harmful compounds only.
Tldr: Without more information on the label putting nitrates in the same category as asbestos or lead is counterproductive via implied false equivalence.
If the labels don’t have some type of ranking system, then they are pointless. A great example being the California cancer labels that are on fucking everything. It’s impossible to use them to gauge risk, because everything you buy causes cancer in California.