An excellent blog over at An Englishman's Castle (via Devils Kitchen) explains that the report that too much red meat is giving us all cancer is massively overblown:
"I have actually downloaded the report , all 537 pages of it. It is a vast data dredge. I have failed to spot any Relative Risks which approach 2 - (an increase of 100%) - In epidemiologic research, [increases in risk of less than 100 percent] are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias, or the effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident. [Source: National Cancer Institute, Press Release, October 26, 1994.]"
As he correctly argues if you are serious about saving people from cancer you should look to improve Britain's woeful cancer survival rates. Michael Moore's film 'Sicko' finally opened in the UK recently. The US system that he berates has the highest survival rate in the world, the NHS he urges us to celebrate has one of the lowest. Instead of trying to scare people into making changes in their lifestyle those interested in improving Britain's health should look to our health service. With political management producing one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world the first place to look for improvements in the nation's health isn't the bacon sarnie.