quoteAny refutation of claims for the initial study will probably never make it to mainline sources and only appear in a professional journal at best. It was a study, it appeared with a scientific aroma (or the makings of one), and it never got denied by news at 11.[/quote]
This is really true.
This is why we still have people asking for nitrate-free cured meats.
It was reported that "nitrates in bacon cause cancer" some decades ago. However, this referred to the huge amounts of nitrates a German company figured out one could inject into a side of bacon and cure it in a matter of hours. Traditionally (as opposed to industrial mass production), very small amounts of mitrates are used at the start and over the several weeks of a natural cure, are converted into nitrous oxide (a gas) and exit the product.
Therefore, traditionally-made cured meats have very small or nil levels of nitrates in them, not the mega-amounts which were implicated in cancer back then.
But all the consumer ever remembers is "nitrates cause cancer!"
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