Your Steak Is Safe to Eat

Since the end of 2014, the Internet has been ablaze with headlines declaring that there is clear evidence of a sialic acid compound, N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), that explains the epidemiologic association of consumption of red meat and cancer. Media attention seems to have been heralded by a recent report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Samraj et al., 2014).

This group has been studying tumor glycomics (i.e., cancer biomarkers) based on complex carbohydra…