"Studying journalism" ranked alongside "Dropping out of high school" as a leading cause of not understanding science.

Here is a whopper of irresponsibly ignorant journalism:

Cured and processed meats DO NOT rank alongside smoking for causing cancer.

Cured and Processed meats ARE NOT among the TOP 5 most carcinogenic substances.

The World Health Organization has classified cured and processed meats as Class 1 carcinogens.  Sounds scary, right?  Here's how that works: If there is enough evidence to conclude that a substance can cause cancer in humans, it is a class 1 carcinogen.  The "Class 1" refers to the strength of the evidence, not the danger of cancer.  That is where the reporter went wrong.

Cigarettes, alcohol, asbestos, and arsenic are all class 1 carcinogens, and the reporter assumed that the meat must be just as bad.  But eating 5 ounces of processed meat every day of your life will increase your chance of getting colorectal cancer by 18%. Smoking every day increases your chance of cancer by as much as 2,000%.   It took me 90 seconds of research to get accurate facts.  It took some poor journalist 4 years of college to get this entire article wrong.

And lest you think I am being too hard on the reporter, consider this quote (taken from her own article!):

Prof Ian Johnson, emeritus fellow at the Institute of Food Research, also said the effect was small. “It is certainly very inappropriate to suggest that any adverse effect of bacon and sausages on the risk of bowel cancer is comparable to the dangers of tobacco smoke, which is loaded with known chemical carcinogens and increases the risk of lung cancer in cigarette smokers by around twentyfold.” (emphasis added)

If the news agency had just done the research of reading their own article, they could have avoided writing such a blatantly false headline.  Which leaves me to ask, "Was it an outright lie, or just gross negligence?"  

The answer: "Both. It's called journalism."