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.
I’ve seen the “California cancer label” line get tossed around. And its beginning to sound a lot like the “McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit” line, which was - itself - a dishonest mischaracterization of a severe injury caused by corporate neglect.
I’d say it cuts both ways. If you label everything “hazardous”, you’re absolutely right. The term loses all meaning. But, at the same time, if we live in a marketplace where everything is hazardous then the theory “we’ll just put a label on it and let the consumer decide” of patriarchal libertarianism falls apart. What is supposed to be informative becomes little more than marketing material.
The real problem is industrial. Mass production of stuff that delivers a short-term jolt of pleasure at a long term health cost, because the manufacturers consider it more profitable than releasing products with a shorter shelf life or a lower addictive quality or a more expensive production cost.
Oops, now everything needs a label, because the folks producing this shit don’t care that all their products are horrible.