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It’s an all-too-familiar scene. A study is published linking some substance to which we may be exposed to cancer. It may be fluoride in toothpaste, butylated hydroxyl toluene (BHT) in cereal, caramel in colas, oxybenzone in sunscreens, arsenic in rice, estrogens in milk, Para Red in paprika, aspartame in diet drinks, glyphosate in cereals, titanium dioxide in mozzarella, bisphenol A in canned foods, red dye No. 2 in maraschino cherries, tertiary-butylhydroquinone in chicken nuggets, nanoparticles in candies, chloropropanols in soy sauce, formaldehyde in pho noodle soup, dioxane in shampoos, chlorine in tap water, aflatoxins in peanut butter, PCBs in farmed salmon, microplastics in sea salt, pesticide residues on produce, acrylamide in French fries or most recently, processed meats.

Before long scary headlines appear in the lay press: “Bacon poses same cancer risk as cigarettes!” People panic and industry attempts to sooth fears with arguments about poor-quality research, cherry-picked data and calculations about the gross amounts of food that would have to be eaten for the claimed effect to arise: “One would have to consume over 150 pounds of French fries every day in order to increase the risk of cancer from acrylamide.” or, “just because we can measure something does not mean the levels are toxic; for farmed salmon, PCB levels were about 3 per cent of the allowable limit of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and the European Union.”