Overview:

• AMSA Issues FYI: IARC Cancer Risk of Red and Processed Meats
• What is IARC?
  • The International Agency for Research on Cancer is a part of the United Nations World Health Organization. IARC has evaluated more than 900 chemicals (e.g. formaldehyde), complex mixtures (e.g. air pollution), occupational exposures, physical agents (e.g. solar radiation), biological agents (e.g. hepatitis B virus), and personal habits (e.g. tobacco smoking). A helpful infographic from GMO Answers shows how some substances have been categorized by IARC.
  • IARC does not specialize in food evaluation -the few foods they have evaluated include coffee, pickled vegetables, and salted fish.
  • IARC classifies compounds into four groups based on their interpretation of available scientific evidence for increasing cancer risk in animals and humans. The four classifications are Groups 1, 2A, 2B, 3, and 4, which correspond to decreasing available evidence for cancer risk.
• What does IARC say about meat?
  • In November 2014, IARC announced it would evaluate the carcinogenicity of red and processed meats.
  • In October 2015, IARC held an expert panel meeting with 22 participants in Lyon, France. The panel considered the evidence for red and processed meats as possible human carcinogens. Several individuals from the USA served as members on this expert panel and there were six observers from the USA that were selected to participate.
  • IARC findings which were made public this morning (10/26) classified processed meat as a Group 1, carcinogenic to humans, and red meat was classified as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans. The complete monograph defining the full details of the report and the studies it considered will be published in 2016.
    • IARC defines red and processed meats as the following:
      • Red meat refers to unprocessed mammalian muscle meat—for example, beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, or goat meat—including minced or frozen meat; it is usually consumed cooked.
      • Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but might also contain other red meats, poultry, offal (eg, liver), or meat byproducts such as blood.