"If you step back and look at the data, the optimum amount of red meat you eat should be zero."

Walter Willett, M.D., Chairman of the Nutrition Department, Harvard School of Public Health; Director of a study of 88,000 American nurses that analyzed the link between diet and colon cancer;
Winner of 2003 Linus Pauling Institute Prize for Health Research.
( lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w03/prize2003.html)
          New England Journal of Medicine, Dec. 1990

"When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings."
William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology 

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Britain, accounting for 25% of all deaths. It has been estimated that diet may be linked to 30-70% of cancers ¹. Certain cancers, such as colon, breast and prostate are clearly diet related ².

Sir Kenneth Calman, Chief Medical Officer, has stated (1997) that "there is a relationship between eating red meat and cancer".

The Oxford Vegetarian Study found cancer mortality to be 39% lower among vegetarians compared with meat-eaters ³ .

References:

1.     Doll, R. (1990) Symposium on diet and cancer.
Proc of the Nutrition Society v.49 p.119-31.

2.     Cummings, J & Bingham, S. (1998) Diet and the Prevention of Cancer BMJ v.317 p.1636-1640.

3.     Thorogood, M et al. (1994) Risk from death from cancer and ischaemic heart disease in meat and non meat-eaters.

Michael Klaper, M.D., Medical Director, EarthSave Foundation, Santa Cruz, California 

 American Dietetic Associations Supportive 2011 Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets

Excerpts from ADA’s current paper state:

“Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

The results of an evidence based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes than non-vegetarians.
Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates.”

Download the American Dietetic Association's latest facts:

http://www.eatright.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8417

Beef contains the highest concentration of herbicides of any food sold in America, according to the national Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences. Eighty percent of all the herbicides used in the U.S. are sprayed on corn and soybeans, which are used primarily as feed for cattle. When consumed by cattle, the chemicals accumulate in their bodies and are passed onto consumers in finished cuts of beef.

-- from National Research Council,
Board on Agriculture, Alternative Agriculture, 44;
National Research Council, Board on Agriculture,
Regulating Pesticides in Food, 78, Table 3-20 to 22.