Meat bodies urge journal to remove ‘flawed’ anti-meat report

Meat trade organisations are demanding the removal of a controversial study published in The Lancet medical journal which suggests eating red meat is damaging to public health.

The report in question is the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors (GBD) 2019 document, which claims a 36-fold increase in the number of global deaths attributed to eating red meat since the previous GBD study was compiled in 2017.

See also: Scientists seek evidence on red meat health risk claims

Despite previous attempts by a number of other eminent scientists to see the evidence to substantiate this claim, questions remain over its validity and whether the report was peer reviewed.

As such, AHDB chief executive Tim Rycroft, British Meat Processors’ Association chief operating officer Nick Allen, and Association of Independent Meat Suppliers chairman John Thorley have had three letters published in The Lancet, demanding the report be removed from the public domain.

They are particularly concerned that the GBD 2019 report continues to be used by lobbyists with an anti-meat agenda to turn policymakers and the public against red meat consumption.

Influential

“[The report] has been cited in such major and influential reports as the government-commissioned National Food Strategy and the Food Standards Agency’s latest five-year strategy, as well as hundreds of other articles, reports and studies that seek to influence people’s diets and health,” said Mr Allen in his letter.

“By maintaining public access to disputed and incorrect information, The Lancet risks encouraging people to do something that could harm instead of help them, because the wrong assumptions were used.”

Mr Rycroft also pointed to subsequent reports from the same scientists which seem to dispel most of the concerns about any dangers from eating red meat.

And Mr Thorley suggested The Lancet “should carry a suitable apology to the livestock and meat businesses for the reputational damage caused”.

Response

In response, The Lancet has published a further letter from the report’s authors – the so-called GBD 2019 Risk Factor Collaborators – who insist there were no errors in their study.

They say GBD 2019 was part of an “iterative process”, so it was inevitable it would differ from the 2017 version – especially as the earlier study only looked at the link between red meat and colorectal cancer and type 2 diabetes, whereas the 2019 report added breast cancer, and four other cardiovascular conditions.

The next report – the GDB 2021 version – is expected to show a lower number of deaths linked to red meat as a result of “methodological improvements”, they add, though it will still show “several hundred thousand deaths attributable to red meat consumption”.