Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan has written to the editor in chief of The Lancet following the publication of a letter from scientists challenging the 2019 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) findings that eating any amount of red meat is bad for you.

In a bid for the questions raised by the scientists to be addressed, Cullinan also wrote to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, the European Commission, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Correspondence from the six leading scientists questioning data on the health impacts of red meat was published in the medical journal on Friday 25 February.

Commenting on the correspondence, the IFA said the findings "raises serious concerns" that negative health impacts have been unfairly attributed to eating red meat.

Guidelines

"These key policy-making agencies, which are responsible for public health guidelines, must address the scientific questions raised about a study which attempted to demonise red meat," Cullinan said.

“The data in question, from ‘Global Burden of Disease’ of 2019, has since been cited in 635 documents, 351 scientific papers and nine policy documents. The questions raised by the scientists in The Lancet must be addressed urgently by the original authors and policy makers,” he added.

"The scientists have been fighting a long battle to have their concerns published by The Lancet.

"There must now be a response from the Global Burden of Disease to address the problem. If this is not forthcoming, then policy-making agencies must disregard the study and revisit any policies which were influenced by it,” he said.

Cullinan said that, so far, it appears the original authors, the ‘Global Burden of Disease’ based in the US, has declined to properly address the scientific questions raised by the scientists, which include Prof Alice Stanton and Prof Patrick Wall, both of whom are from Ireland.