The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is essentially the UK’s version of Bord Bia. Last month, it called on the medical journal The Lancet to retract a 2019 study it published that established a significant health risk to red meat consumption. The AHDB says that there are worrying question marks over the study.

To be clear, this is not the EAT/Lancet study. That was funded by the EAT foundation, a pet project of globetrotting billionaire Norwegian couple the Stordhalens, who proclaim the rest of us should adopt a vegan diet to save the planet while they swan around on their private jet.

Rather, this is a study of the health risks of various diets by the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk factors, known as the GBD, a highly reputable body.

Its report stated that red meat consumption could be linked to 896,000 deaths and almost 24m disability-adjusted life years (years of living with illness).

Now, a team of experts, led by Professor Alice Stanton of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, have written to The Lancet calling for the GBD to publish the evidence that led to the conclusions the report contained. The World Cancer Research Fund has also flagged concerns with the study.

As one of the leading medical journals worldwide, The Lancet’s words carry immense weight. As a result, the consequences of it being wrong are substantial. Of course, science is constantly evolving, and what we know, or think we know, changes as new information comes to light from ongoing research.

Extreme example

The most extreme example of this in recent decades followed the publication of a 1998 report that concluded there was a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

The report has since been utterly discredited. Its primary author Andrew Wakefield was deregistered, and now is a anti-vaccination activist. Some commentators say there is a direct link between the MMR vaccine falsehoods that report contained, and resistance and conspiracy theories around COVID-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, lower uptake of the MMR vaccine saw cases of measles, mumps and rubella increase. MMR vaccination levels have now thankfully substantially recovered.

For a food product, reputational damage can be hard to repair. Even if The Lancet publishes a full clarification of its meat story, will it gain as much traction? “Meat in moderation is not bad for you” is a less sexy tabloid headline than “Meat eating kills 900,000 people a year”, the report’s original finding. Give a dog a bad name and all that.

We’ll follow this unfolding saga with interest.