Scientists raise serious questions about reliability of data on health impact of red meat

IFA President Tim Cullinan said the intervention by a group of international scientists, published in The Lancet medical journal yesterday, questioning data used to analyse the health impacts of red meat, is very significant.

“What was published in The Lancet raises serious concerns that negative health impacts have been unfairly attributed to red meat,” he said.

“Based on what was published in The Lancet, it’s clear that the original data has not been subjected to rigorous peer review. To a lay person, the points made by the scientists raise very serious and obvious concerns, which must be addressed immediately,” he said.

“These scientists have been fighting a battle for the last two years to have their concerns addressed by The Lancet, which published the original Global Burden of Disease Data,” he said.

So far it appears the original authors, the ‘Global Burden of Disease’ based in the US, have declined to properly address the scientific questions raised by the scientists, which include Prof. Alice Stanton and Prof. Patrick Wall from Ireland.

“The data in question, from ‘ Global Burden of Disease’ of 2019, has since been cited in 635 documents, 351 scientific papers and nine policy documents. The questions raised by the scientists in The Lancet must be addressed urgently by the original authors and policy makers,” he said.