Jane Clifton: New everyday items are ‘causing cancer’, and confusion

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It could be the fridge magnets that get you in the end, or perhaps the aloe vera. Photo / Getty Images

It could be the fridge magnets that get you in the end, or perhaps the aloe vera. Throw in pickled vegetables, bracken ferns or Wi-Fi and you’re simply dicing with oblivion.

These everyday items are now in the same category as the sweetener aspartame as being “possibly” carcinogenic, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Yet the headlines have never screamed at us to “break up with” Wi-Fi, pickles or magnets the way they are now exhorting us to dump Diet Coke.

A new assessment by the International Agency for Research on Cancer has prompted the WHO to upgrade aspartame’s classification to a “Group 2B carcinogen”, causing as much global confusion as panic. The equally authoritative Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives retaliated by saying there “is no convincing evidence” the sweetener causes cancer.

As sales of aspartame-containing products have yet to crash, it appears consumers are shrugging off the clickbait hysteria and instead seeing a mildly interesting case of two august institutions mulishly clashing.

In their efforts to inform and protect us, scientists sometimes overshoot. TV infomercials are required to have disclaimers: “Results may vary.” Scientists’ announcements should come with a version of this: “Have another pinhead standing by, as there may be too many of us dancing on this one.”

Even caprolactam, once alone in Group 4 as “probably not” causing cancer, has now been moved to Group 3. It’s a substance common in stretchy fabric so we must even mistrust our wholesome bike tights and yoga pants.

But pretty much everything else remains under suspicion, being in either WHO Groups 1 and 2, or the “not classifiable” Group 3, which includes things that can’t yet adequately be tested.

Coffee (Group 3) has been on parole from Group 2 for only nine years, since the WHO decided, after its 25 years classified as a possible carcinogen, that it wasn’t so risky after all. Rather, the brew’s anti-oxidants have demonstrated protective powers against certain cancers.

Cured meat – bacon, salami and the like – has now endured a decade as a Group 1 carcinogen, as risky as smoking, obesity and sun exposure.

Excessive exposure to anything is apt to be harmful but a sense of proportion can help in navigating the seemingly inelastic edicts of science authorities. A daily diet of processed meat is ill-advised. But broader data tells us big processed-meat eaters often have recourse to other Group 1 and 2 imperilments, so it might be the sausages that carry them off, or it might be the sausages plus the chips, booze, fags and sedentary lifestyle. Add some pickled and magnetised aloe vera, then sleep it off in a clump of bracken and you’re done for.

Two of those universal nanna sayings go a long way to clear this data thicket: all things in moderation, but a little of what you fancy does you good.

Meanwhile, Ireland continues to feast disproportionately on the plight of its state broadcaster, RTÉ, to the point where pubs have been advertising live coverage of the Oireachtas (parliamentary) hearings into its finances. For perspective, it’s hard to conceive of New Zealand select committee hearings emptying publicans’ vats quicker than a test match, but punters here can’t get enough of the secret overpayment scandal. It even includes elements of the classic Irish sitcom Father Ted.

As TV presenter Ryan Tubridy understood it, the extra €75,000 ($134,000) secretly paid to him had been an advance fee from sponsors for whom he was to host certain TV events. If the events don’t take place, he now says, he’ll pay it back. Respected Irish commentator Fintan O’Toole was delighted to declare this the classic Father Ted defence: “The money was only resting in my account.”

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