Experts are urging the UK government to introduce cigarette-style cancer warnings on packets of bacon and ham, saying that chemicals used in their processing are known to cause bowel cancer.
The demand comes ten years after the World Health Organization (WHO) classified processed meats as carcinogenic to humans, placing them in the same risk category as tobacco and asbestos. Despite this, scientists say successive governments have done “virtually nothing” to reduce the public’s exposure to nitrites – chemicals added to bacon and ham to preserve them and maintain their pink colour.
According to researchers from the Coalition Against Nitrites, this inaction has contributed to 54,000 bowel cancer cases in the past decade, costing the NHS an estimated £3 billion.
In an open letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the scientists – including four who worked on the original WHO assessment – called for warning labels on nitrite-cured meats and a phase-out of the chemicals in processed meat production.
“Consumers deserve clear information,” said Prof Denis Corpet of Toulouse University. “Most people don’t realise that the WHO classifies nitrite-cured meats in the same carcinogenic category as tobacco and asbestos.”
The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) confirmed that consuming processed meat raises the risk of bowel cancer, though it stopped short of supporting warning labels.
Former government food safety adviser Prof Chris Elliott said: “Every year of delay means more preventable cancers, more families affected and greater strain on the NHS.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said the Food Standards Agency had found that the link between nitrites and cancer “remains inconclusive.”
