have you noticed whenever you see a commercial for ham on t.v. it's often set in the countryside. with a nice family and a rustic backdrop. and the ham is always pink. very pink. and one hundred percent natural course. looks so tasty it has your mouth watering on the couch. with that's the point. but what if behind is pretty pink and one of the biggest health scandals of our era . in two thousand and fifteen the world health organization listed processed meats

as carcinogenic for man. we decided to investigate the ingredients used by the giants of the food industry and used d.n.a. breaks new date cells into sort of precancerous cells. we discovered that to impede or halt regulations on certain additives food industry lobbies have been working in the shadows for decades. just to understand that the industry has a ready made that is this is their very risk averse they're not going to fund a study that is bad for their business. as if. it's just a baby so to speak political to the people. at the heart of this strategy of influence are the scientists who collaborate needs industry biju for this i reasoned some compensation for my time as well as the others months.

the scientists who are targeted. trying to shoot me down or discredit me that's what she needs scientifically. efforts to go after the science to discredit the scientists is a key element of much larger just the. process. between intimidation lies and manipulation we will uncover proof of a worldwide strategy for hitting below the belt is allowed. feeling hungry now that it's time to eat tonight you are our guests. to find out how ham is made we visited a factory. we might. welcome

to feel one of the market leaders in france and one of the few to play the card of transparency. the hammer on your supermarket shelves starts out like this. big lumps of pork meat. to add to taste a little vegetable stock. it all goes into a ham shaped mold and it's cooked. and the result perfectly pink rounded slices if you grasp the basics well let's rewind a little to see the detail that changes everything. to obtain this fine there's another very important step. you have to inject the meat. a machine with a dozen syringes injects a liquid into the lumps of pork me.

the liquid contains an essential additive. factory manager who shows us. these yellow sacks contain a mixture of salt and sodium nitrite the additive to fifty. percent of the day. and you do. that by two is enough you see doing it at. i see going as if it's the invalid nor include loss will. it be. in fact he's telling us that the pretty pink of our ham isn't natural at all. it's thanks to sodium nitrate. this additive fix is the pink of the me during cooking. otherwise ham would be the color of roast pork. that's why food

industrialist can't do without it as a processed meat producer would confirm. it's of a loss to the law or. to get along with it or that. it's more than just get it. all clears and clean jaunts of the normal greed. system for us. because there's only. some come up to some going after it i'm not sure. that i can always. pull it some up but. natural but without the pink it would be impossible to sell. the big problem is that sodium nitrite is believed to be

a danger to public health. the additives suspected of playing a role in the development of colorectal cancer. one of the deadliest cancers in europe. because of a phenomenon the takes place during digestion. it's chemistry but will make it simple. piece of cured meet. you think you're peacefully digesting it but what you don't know is the nitrite molecules are reacting with the meat proteins transforming them into very dangerous substances. i mean. we went to the netherlands to learn more about the effects of this chemical reaction on our health. to the faculty of medicine of maastricht university.

this is where the toxicologist professor works. he's been interested in nitrites for years and by extension natural some means. known to use damage in the large intestine so in. d.n.a. breaks mutate cells into sort of precancerous cells. or something. to prevent professor dick. notably want to find out what happens inside the body when we don't eat processed meat and when we eat a lot of it to do so he conducted an experiment with human guinea pigs. for two weeks and this student three hundred grams of processed meat a day the equivalent of eight. to fifteen we saw. the exposure to. considerably increased.

threefold increase. levels that we measure. the researcher measured the impact on the organism of this chemical mutation of nitrites. in his lab he tested the water of big processed meat eaters. so what you see here is. four different individuals. to see what happens inside the body the researchers mix this water with human cells . the white deposit in the test to. observe what happened to the cells. to see. everything isn't there. but if you are exposed to. breakage it's all of the d.n.a.

you see this. is. so you have more likely it is that this will eventually mutate into a type of cell how does it take for such a. relatively quickly say when we isolate the cells. and they. also. stopped using nitrites then what. would make a difference potentially. in europe. that's huge because. very frequent disease.

changes. thousands fewer and therefore potentially fewer deaths just by suppressing nitrites . but the food industry has a sledgehammer argument for justify the use of. it protects us from botulism. botulism is a form of food poisoning caused by bacteria that affect our central nervous system and can be deadly. ferry right. but there's a glitch in their argument. they're already companies which do produce processed meats without nitrites and their customers are in fine form.

if you happen to be copenhagen in denmark. pop into a supermarket. there you'll find cured meats nitrites. and for those whose danish is gone a bit rusty it's. it's everywhere. you can easily recognize it by its color more brownish than pretty pink. the best known brand is produced one hundred fifty kilometers south of the capital in denmark biggest organic processed meat plant kind of god. and. the boss a biochemist started in nitrate free cured meats twenty five years ago.

and since then the danish health authorities haven't registered a single case of botulism caused by processed meat. we do not have problems with this bacteria i would say for the last fifty years this has not been a recent. topic in western europe that was a problem and needed industry. hundred years ago. to think we're not as clean as they are slaughterhouses were another clean as they are today so no worry about bacteria we have to worry about additives that my. and if they are not necessary for some very good reasons we should not do is clearly a cancer risk today i mean risks that's the main risk today definitely and and agony it has been so.

long to produce just in need but main reason is that the freight costs not accept which do not have the red color of the been used to. make. if you are. really like mind reading. and then you have the kind of which i have for sure. you hans to self-love people think we do not to die people being hunting and people being alone but the pots we have being isolated because i was skinny.

here's what people have been saying about rejected in the us is it just full on awesome the only show i go out of my way to lunch you know what it is that really packs a punch oh yeah mr john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are apparently better than the blues. and see people you never heard of love redacted tonight president of the world bank though he doesn't really have any seriously send us an email i don't see clear at a cost strata does it anyway i always see. things good for today or tomorrow. you have a team of four with brief period of time and you know divorce immediately i think that's. bad historical moment in the middle east and it is very difficult to

predict how things will be called. upon to go as one of the few food industry companies to do without nitrites. and experts have been ringing alarm bells for years twenty five years ago a european union health report already recommended reducing the amounts of nitrite used in processed meat. in one thousand nine hundred nine this report even put forward banning its use altogether. despite the increasing number of studies the european commission still allows industrial food companies to add lots of nitrites to the products. so we went to the commissioner for health and food safety a former health minister in lithuania question.

of course. for our institutions. follow. the present crossfire. sponsored it. for over an hour the commissioner attempted to pull the wool over our eyes. in spite of all the reports by experts which for twenty five years have warned the authorities about the dangers of nitrite. think there are enough you know all this. it's just your blood sense. since the possibility of. flow into c.n.n. to do how to move. this possible parents is good decisions are

just sort of all decisions. like this isn't like if i. knew i knew oh. i mean this story. started to get started as a starter shows that almost. saved your life in this case why. last. story. so let's look at the facts mr commissioner. denmark wanted to limit the use of nitrites the european commission was against it and in two thousand and three in court the danes won in the name of the protection of public health. and i am very

happy about european court decisions than european court. probably is but i want to do it to me that santa and the commissioner to sponsor a problem is in better conditions and yet since this court ruling e.u. regulations are just as lax as ever. from my point of view we must be more and not just asking to change the. need for follow ups to keep. on board popular coutts but i'm just not put off it absolutely but it's but it's of course it's. time perfect that's just what the food industry wants and what it is built its strategy on for years.

because when it comes to nitrite industrialists have been waiting out the clock for forty eight. years of scientific manipulation blackmail and intense lobbying so the meat business can carry on bringing home the bacon. and it all began on the other side of the atlantic. if you think we're exaggerating listen to this. in the late one nine hundred seventy s. nitrite was almost banned in the united states just after the publication of a large scale. study requested by the government. a relationship between kids. was proved suggested proved and

a fairly strong one there were two thousand. very extensive study done by a well respected scientist. nitrites was announced in the press but the american media institute would bring out its big guns. in his office overlooking the capital its president richard ling spoke. needs to contain or big big thing. about. billion dollars about two thirds of the production in the states goes into cured meats. presents a problem or our industry and or the government. we're all hopeful of a solution. armed with financial analysis the american meat lobby forced the government to back down the banning of nitrites would send prices plummeting

and cause an apocalypse. but it was a political event that would close the debate. in one thousand ronald reagan was elected president of the united states and guess who entered into government. richard ling the president of the american meat institute himself. the idea of banning nitrite forever buried. the experiment base study on two thousand rats ended up in the trash can. and after that the same fate would await every scientific publication calling nitrites into question. if you're wondering how the interests of industry can systematically win against what's at stake in public health the following will enlighten you. fifteen years

after the victory of reagan and the media industrialists a new study shook america to the core. if it's not one thing it's another a study finds a link between hot dogs now and cancer put yourself in the shoes of the average american joe at the time. you and your family are eating hot dogs at the shopping mall or in the street just as usual. the effect was immediate in a matter of days dog sales fell by eight percent. and given the size of the american market that represented millions of dollars less for the food industry. the author of the hot dog study that caused sales to plummet with susan preston mark. she's now retired scientist living near los angeles in

a residential suburban setting straight out of an american soap. after several tense months of talks she agreed to see us. but we had to insist right up until the last minute. the lady is very discreet it's only to go from friendship. mrs preston martin. yes and sometimes you go some strange t.v. . with your discoveries are processed meats the researcher was the victim of a number of attacks but she agreed to look back at her work which showed up link between the excessive eating of hot dogs and certain rare cancers in children.

how did you find the relationship well just the way we always did when we did case control studies we started out with a group of children who had leukemia and compared them to group children who didn't have leukemia and we asked the mothers about what they fed the children and sure enough the kids with. dogs what did you think when you saw this strong relationship because it was quite it was with dogs i was a little bit surprised and just. reserved judgment which is what the stew when they find something they don't expect. from that moment on the food industrialists susan preston martin became public enemy number one. and the meat lobby they definitely didn't like what we were doing they were terribly upset and i could understand that you know their livelihood was making processed meat and they didn't want any any thing coming out

saying that those were not good for you basically were trying to shoot me down or discredit me and that's what shoot down needs scientifically. what we discovered went much further. the scientists had never realized just whom she was dealing with. america made a hot dog. meyer gave it to get a ticket. in the u.s. the undisputed champion of supermarket sold hot dogs has always been oscar meyer. america's number one. a brand of the kraft foods group a giant of the food industry. so far no surprises. but what's less known is that at the time and until two thousand and seven kraft was owned by philip morris the world's second largest tobacco company

a lobby which went as far as lies and manipulation to defend its own interests notably in the big tobacco lawsuits of the one nine hundred ninety s. do you believe nicotine is not addictive i believe nicotine is not addictive yes i believe. cigarettes questioning proven scientific facts the strategy worked perfectly for years with tobacco so philip morris use it again to save oscar meyer's hot dogs. in kenya in georgia stand how the multinational manipulated science to defend its investments and cured meats you know we headed to northern california. to san francisco. this university library holds what are commonly known as the tobacco documents millions of internal tobacco industry documents. and.

our guide stanton glantz has spent his life unraveling the cigarette makers strategies and. he particularly remembers one phrase used by a lobbyist in one thousand nine hundred sixty nine. and. doubters our product since that is the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists in the mind of the general public there's also the means of establishing a controversy for him everything is summed up in one word. and it was exactly like that by creating doubt that philip morris set out to discredit dr preston martin study on processed meat and cancer in children. the proof is there in the vast database of the tobacco documents.

by typing susan preston martin you get hundreds of hits. and all in the philip morris by. the researchers name crops up regularly in the titles of memos letters and internal reports. the multinational believed her study on hot dogs would reopen the debate surrounding nitrites from the one nine hundred seventy s. so it paid scientists to go through her work with a fine tooth comb in order to find any weak points. even her contracts and grant papers passed under the microscope. basically anything that could be used against her. and we can her in the eyes of the government and the press.

well first and foremost a president who said you just did you see he doesn't see marshmallows as the ground solution the president said again and again. he does not been here for the long haul. so well so there's no read need for it but the implied you would like to extend martial law for that for personal reasons of course willful. social environment. right. chemical discoveries over the last century made every day life easier but at what cost this is cereal is exceptionally sick. no wonder it's confidential. cysts as the years old industrial giants reap the benefit ignoring the cools by chemical production. you know as if

these people aren't people just experimental animals decades later the toxic environment continues to poison lives and we found these astronomically high levels of backs and levels that my staff think maybe some of the highest levels ever found in the united states for almost thirty years this very serious problem had not actually been addressed what will that investigation into the chemical industry secrets revealed. this despicable. earth there's criminal. justice system.

you know. we hear exclusively from the victims' families. on a shooting rampage in the united states. and then.