Burgers, sausages as big a cancer threat as cigarettes!

Zee Media Bureau

Washington: Health experts have ruled that bacon, burgers and sausages are as big a cancer threat as cigarettes!

The World Health Organisation is to list processed meat as among the most cancer-causing substances, putting it on a par with asbestos and arsenic, according to reports.

Fresh red meat is also due to join the ‘encyclopaedia of carcinogens’ and is likely to be ranked as only slightly less dangerous than the preserved products.

The classifications, by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, come amid mounting concern that meat fuels the disease which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK.

They are believed to have agreed processed meat is ‘carcinogenic to humans’, the highest of five possible rankings, shared with alcohol, asbestos, arsenic and cigarettes.

Processed meat is made by smoking, curing, salting, or adding chemicals and it includes ham, bacon, pastrami and salami, burgers as well as hot dogs and some sausages.