Yesterday all over the web and on TV shows everywhere (even from sane folks like Jake Tapper) about the horrible terrible news that your bacon will be the death of you.
The WHO findings were drafted by a panel of 22 international experts who reviewed decades of research on the link between red meat, processed meats and cancer. The panel reviewed animal experiments, studies of human diet and health, and cell processes that could explain how red meat might cause cancer.
But the panel’s decision was not unanimous, and by raising lethal concerns about a food that anchors countless American meals, it will be controversial
That’s the Washington Post, at Yahoo they say this:
Each 50-gram (1.8-ounce) portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent, the agency estimated.
A 50-gram portion would be the equivalent of eating one hot dog or two slices of bacon. Americans eat about 21.7 grams of processed pork per day, according to a 2011 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Right now a lot of lawyers are licking their chops and a lot of members of the food Gestapo are preparing to demand changes in school heath programs, school diets etc etc and I can feel the sheer panic among shoppers at whole foods from here.
And the reason why this is coming? Well there are two:
- Americans are really ignorant about math
- What are the actual odds of getting colorectal cancer?
Question #1 matters because while most people hear the words “18% increase” and think that their odds of getting this disease have gone to better than 1-5 the reality is that means the odds have gone up 18% from what they actually were. For example if something has a 1% chance of happening if you increase the chances of that thing happening by 18% the new odds are not 19% as some would think but 1.1% (1/100) * (118/100) or 118/10000 = 1.1%
And Question #2 matters because we can’t find out what the actual new odds are for a particular event until we know what the old odds are, how will we know what number to multiply by 118/100?
Well the answer to question 2 is available online at cancer.org. Going by their charts men have a lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer of 1 in 21 or 4.84% and the odds of a woman catching the same disease is 4.49 or 1 in 22
So even though we know that according to the stats given we eat only 43.4% of a hot dog per day on avg let’s assume for the sake of argument that you actually eat a hotdog every single day for your entire life. what does that do to your cancer odds.
Well if you do the actual math and multiply 4.84/100 by 118/100 it mans that 18% increase makes a man’s odds of getting colorectal cancer go to 5.7% . For a woman that 4.49/100 multiplied by 118/100 the woman’s odds go up to 5.2%
In other words, if this study is absolutely positively spot on correct eating that hotdog every single day for your entire life raises your odds of catching colorectal cancer by nearly but not quite….1%.
Or to put it another way if you’re a gamer if you eat that hotdog a day then your odds of catching colorectal cancer go from being about the odds of rolling a 1 on a D20 to about the odds of rolling a 1 on a D20.
Now when you put it that way, if you told a guy that giving up bacon decreases your odds of getting cancer by less that 1% most people would decide those odds aren’t worth panicking over and would rightly consider such panic as idiotic.
Which is why newspapers that make a living off of scary click bait, tv shows that make money off of scary click bait, NGO’s that make money off of scary panics, and pols who get big contributions from NGO’s after they get taxpayer-funded grants and colleges who get funding from taxpayer and NGO’s to study these things, and lawyers who make money off of suing successfully profitable businesses, like for example the meat industry aren’t going to show you the math I just did.
It doesn’t fit the meme and there is no profit for them in it.
To be fair, there is absolutely nothing wrong if person decides that 1% increase warrants decreasing one’s intake of processed meats, if an individual thinks the increased risk isn’t worth it it’s their life and their choice to make.
But if you do make that choice do so on the actual evidence not due to panic and deception.
Update: Two Instalances & a hotair headline thanks Sarah Ed & Ed While you’re here in addition to my appeal below check out my election coverage including my exclusive interview with Ted Cruz last week.
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There unfortunately isn’t a lot of profit from letting people know they’re being played. The only pay I get for this work comes from you. My goal for 2015 is $22,000 I’m a full 17k shy as of today.
Given that fact and the discovery that the repairs needed for my car that failed inspection will run between $500-$1000 I would ask you to please consider hitting DaTipJar.
That gets all the bills paid. Consider Subscribing 100 Subscribers at $20 a month will get the job done and then some.
Additionally our subscribers get our podcast emailed directly to them before it show up anywhere else.
I know you can get the MSM for nothing, but that’s pretty much what most of them are worth.
[…] …In other words, if this study is absolutely positively spot on correct eating that hotdog every single day for your entire life raises your odds of catching colorectal cancer by nearly but not quite….1%. Read More > at Da Tech Guy Blog […]
Doesn’t 1.18% round to 1.2% and not 1.1%?
[…] Bacon Panic + Poor Math Skills = Easy Money […]
Take an aspirin with your hot dog and it’s OK. “Over a 20+ year period, aspirin appeared to reduce the risk of CRC mortality by approximately 33%. “
I agree entirely with your larger point. However, your calculation to arrive at the new risk of colorectal cancer when you eat a hotdog every day does not take into account that the poulation that makes base number is not just people who eat no processed meats. You have to figure out the risk for somebody who eats no processed meats and multiply that by 1.18. You will end up with a slightly lower risk than stated in the article.
You could try to use the info that the population eats about 25g of meat every day and assume that 9% is already built in. However, we don’t know that it’s a linear relationship.
Actually, it’s not even that bad. The prior percentages include all the people who eat hot dogs, so the increase in risk is actually from some unknown lower level.
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The findings only apply to processed meat, which is why I only eat animals I kill with my own incisors.
My boss & co-workers complain about it sometimes, but most of my clients are excited to have something to tell their parents they saw at daycare.
The mortality rate among human beings is 100%.
If you quit;
Bacon, pork, red meat, fish, vegetables, popping your knuckles, biting your fingernails, listening to rap;
You are still going to DIE.
Three score and ten and you are headed for the dirt.
NOBODY is getting out of here alive.
One thing studying epidemiology at the graduate level at Harvard taught me for sure: ALL LONG-TERM DIETARY STUDIES IN NON-IMPRISONED HUMANS ARE TOTAL AND UTTER CRAP. ALL OF THEM.
Well, at least you could help the nausea caused by the treatment of the bacon-caused cancer with a little pot…
oh wait…
http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/hazard_ident/pdf_zip/FinalMJsmokeHID.pdf
[…] day dramatically increases your risk of cancer. The liberal media is going nuts and dramatically overstating the actual […]
The baseline includes a lot of people that eat processed pork, so you would have to back out that impact to start with. Which would further reduce the totals and increases. If this was true to start with.
Much ado about nothing.
Knowing the absolute risk is everything. The relative risk is really not that important.
Colon cancer is almost entirely preventable by colonoscopy, which everyone should, whether you eat meat or not.
Of more interest is whether some people, who are prone to colon cancer by bad genetics, are more heavily impacted (no pun intended), by eating red meat.
This sounds like tree huggers doing their thing. Meat is bad.
[…] BACON PANIC + POOR MATH SKILLS = EASY MONEY: “In other words, if this study is absolutely positively spot on correct eating that hotdog every single day for your entire life raises your odds of catching colorectal cancer by nearly but not quite….1%.” […]
BUTTER
I remember way way back when government shills told me that eating butter would shorten my life by 5.1 years. Now I like butter, it tastes good and it makes me feel good. So it seem what these X spurts are telling me is I should give up butter to extend my life. But giving up butter will make me miserable. They are saying I should be miserable for the next 40 – 50 years so I can extend my misery for an extra 5.1 years.
I don’t thik so! It is worth it TO ME to continue to enjoy my butter and forsake the extra 5.1 years.
As I approached my expiration date the X spurts revised the settled science an told me that while butter did reduce my life by 5.1 years the replacement for butter, Oleomargerine will reduce my life by 7.2 years.
Well, I’m way past my expirery date now and I’ve been HAPPY eating butter all these years so even though the settled science is telling me red meat will kill me sooner rather than later, I’ll keep eating red meat and be happy!
Thank you! Time and again I explain this concept to folks, but they rarely get the concept. In my profession of radiation safety, the most egregious example I saw was the statement that one hit of radiation could/would cause a cancer. People bought it. The actual odds of one hit of radiation causing a cancer are 1 in a quadrillion. Not a million, not a billion, not even a trillion – 1 in a quadrillion. Mathematical illiteracy abounds. Most have no clue how to analyze for risk and determining a rational response. to real risk.
PS: first time here and now bookmarked.
Good exposé of the alarmism. But your arithmetic is a little sloppy. 1% x 118% 1.18%, which almost anyone would round to 1.2%, not 1.1%.
Check. This sentence needs the numbers checked:
For example if something has a 1% chance of happening if you increase the chances of that thing happening by 18% the new odds are not 19% as some would think but 1.1% (1/100) * (118/100) or 118/10000 = 1.1%
First, 1/100 is 1.0%, not 1.1%. Also as Rich points out, an 18% increase to that works out to 1.18%. Picky, yes, but this was a post about understanding probabilities.
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The W.H.O. is part of the U.N. The U.N. is an Islamic sympathizer. Muslims don’t eat pork AND MORE IMPORTANTLY don’t want ANYONE to eat pork. Ipso-facto. Study results are agenda driven and flawed.
Recent scientific studies have found that eating is a leading cause of death. Everyone who died has been found to have previously eaten.