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WHO: Drinking Extremely Hot Coffee, Tea 'Probably' Causes Cancer (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via USA Today: The World Health Organization reports that drinking coffee, tea and other beverages at temperatures hotter than 149 degrees Fahrenheit may lead to cancer of the esophagus. These hot beverages can injure cells in the esophagus and lead to the formation of cancer cells, said Mariana Stern, an associate professor of preventative medicine and urology at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. But scientists did say that if you drink coffee at cooler temperatures, it is not only safe but it may decrease of the risk of liver cancer by 15%, according to research published in Lancet Oncology. Previously, the International Agency for Research on Cancer ruled coffee was a "possible carcinogenic" in 1991. The research involved Stern and 22 other scientists from 10 countries, who examined about 1,000 studies on more than 20 types of cancer.
I had a customer some years ago who was an oncologist. He told me that the reason we see so much cancer these days is that we live long enough to get cancer.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
For those of us in the real world, 149 degrees Fahrenheit = 65 degrees Celsius.
The non-sensational headline for those of us that don't care for them would read: "Repeatedly damaging the tissue lining the esophagus with very hot liquids probably contributes to an increased chance of that tissue becoming cancerous."
Snopes is your friend to help you from continuously embarrassing yourself by tossing out flippant remarks to things you seemingly know little or nothing about.
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=107;t=000479;p=1
McFact No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation - and yet they never so much as consulted a burn expert regarding the issue.
McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
McFact No. 4: The woman, an 81-year old former department store clerk who had never before filed suit against anyone, said she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills.
McFact No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.
McFact No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company. When it came to the punitive damages, the jury found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious, or wanton conduct, and rendered a punitive damage award of 2.7 million dollars. (The equivalent of just two days of coffee sales, McDonalds Corporation generates revenues in excess of 1.3 million dollars daily from the sale of its coffee, selling 1 billion cups each year.)
McFact No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media.
McFact No. 8: A report in Liability Week, September 29, 1997, indicated that Kathleen Gilliam, 73, suffered first degree burns when a cup of coffee spilled onto her lap. Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants. Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds, requiring skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability to the victims for many months, and in some cases, years.
149F = 65C, guess which unit was used originally?
Oliver.
just tell me, again, why I would care what some aging band has to say about coffee?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The human pain threshold for temperature is 106-108F (41-42C). Unless you're a masochist who likes to shotgun boiling hot liquids, so long as you don't get a painful sensation, you're fine. Realize that even if the liquid is much higher than this temperature, so long as you sip small quantities of it, it will rapidly cool to something closer to your body temperature when it enters your mouth. Most folks instinctively do this, because pain sucks.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
I'd listen to this WHO guy if I were you all. He's a Doctor, after all.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The temperature of the McDonalds coffee machine specified in the lawsuit (195 F) was within the temperature range recommended by the National Coffee Association and Bunn, the largest manufacturer of coffee brewing machines sold in the U.S. 195 - 205 F.
The legal team for the woman surveyed temperatures of coffee machines at a half dozen restaurants nearby the McDonalds, and deceptively reported that temperatures at other restaurants were "as low as" 165 F. Which is a useless statement since one restaurant could've had a broken machine and the other 5 could've been serving coffee at a higher temperature than McDonalds and the statement still would've been true. This is classic tricky phrasing used by lawyers to mislead the jury. It's where the "20 degrees hotter" statement comes from. The adjective that belongs in front is "at most 20 degrees hotter," but because of the tricky way the lawyers phrased it people mistakenly think it's "at least". If their research had actually shown McDonalds was serving coffee too hot, they would've reported the temperature of all 6 other restaurants they surveyed, not just one.
Those 700 incidents were over a period of something like 13 years when McDonalds sold billions of cups of coffee. I number crunched the statistics once. If you lived 5 miles from McDonalds and drove there to buy a cup of coffee and took it home, you were more likely to die in a traffic accident than to scald yourself by spilling their coffee. If their coffee was too dangerous for the public, then so is every car on the road.
I want to say the figure was 18 billion cups of coffee served in that time, but honestly I don't recall exactly. If the 18 billion figure is correct, then those 700 incidents are equivalent to buying a cup of coffee at McDonalds every day, and spilling it on yourself once every 70,000 years. If anything, McDonalds should be getting an award for making a portable and minimal hot beverage container so safe.
Unfortunate, but ultimately irrelevant. The question isn't is hot coffee dangerous. Of course it is. So is hot tea,
Obesity isn't the concern with sugar, though most people seem to think it is. Sugar, be it fructose, sucrose, or glucose in thigh enough levels, is processed in your liver the same way as alcohol and leads to the same liver damage if consumed in excess. Further, most regions of the world concerned with starvation have less access to sugar-loaded processed and shelf-stable foods and, thus, are at lower risk of obesity even if they suddenly had record harvests resulting in plentiful food for all.
Don't get me wrong, I love me some sugar; I'm just not disillusioned about what I'm doing to my body when I eat it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Fuck you.
Coffee is to be served hot. There's no problem with serving it hotter than other restaurants do. I'd see that as a good thing. Unless you can point to standards and regulations that require coffee to be served below a certain temperature, your "McFact No. 1" is a failure.
Hot coffee can cause burns. McDonalds settling cases is no different than a super market settling cases when idiots slip and fall despite the wet floor signs. it does not indicate a problem with the coffee, it indicates problems with the customers (they're idiots) and the legal system (it's easier to pay idiots to go away than it is to fight them in court and hope the idiots on the jury side with you against a fellow idiot). "McFact No. 2 is a failure.
I don't care how serious the woman's injuries were. They were caused by HER spilling the coffee she knew to be hot. If you buy a knife and cut yourself like an idiot, can you sue for the knife being too sharp? But what if you like, cut yourself really badly? Does that somehow change who is culpable? (I wouldn't be surprised if you could trot out cases where exactly this happened. That doesn't make the reasoning any less ludicrous, however.). "McFact No. 3" is a failure.
Yes, the little old lady said she was a nice little old lady and only wanted her medical bills paid. Is she also selling a used car that she only ever drove on Sundays, to and from church? "McFact No. 4" is a failure because it has nothing to do with anything.
A rando (no typo here) McDonald's employee claimed McDonald's was aware of the risk? Of course they're aware. They're also aware of the risk of operating a drive through window. People could incorrectly drive their cars and hit things! Further, the rando employee cannot speak to whether or not "most customers wouldn't think it was possible". If such testimony as admitted, McDonald's lawyers failed. "McFact No. 5" is a failure. A rando employee's comments about McDonald's awareness that coffee is hot doesn't mean McDonald's is at fault for someone spilling coffee on themselves. Coffee being hot, and hot things causing burns, is common sense. You'd be hard pressed to find an animal that doesn't know this, let alone a human.
Careful deliberation? You know nothing of what went on in that room. The verdict was absurd, as was the reward. Comparing it to McDonald's revenue has no bearing on anything. "McFact No. 6" is a failure.
Lowering the award? Who cares? It's still the wrong fucking decision. "McFact No. 7" is a failure. It doesn't change how wrong the decision was.
Hot coffee still burns? WHAT A SHOCK! "McFact No. 8" is the biggest failure of all. What are you trying to prove with that? It's meaningless!
The hot coffee fiasco is a groundbreaking case because the decision was 100% wrong and it exemplifies just how fucked up the legal system is, and how fucking stupid juries are. I don't give a shit about McDonald's, and they can easily pay ridiculous awards in these cases (and let's be clear, they're fucking awards - prizes for being an idiot). But if you fail to see that this isn't about a little old lady fighting an evil mega corp you're just as dumb as she was. Lawsuits are fucking out of control in this country, and shit like this is why companies have resorted to binding arbitration clauses for everything from cell phones to medical care. It's harder and harder to recoup damages from real injury caused by malicious or negligent corporations, but it's easier than ever to sue for hollow, illegitimate shit.
I would except for those "McFact"s makes him sound like a Duche.
Now I admit McDonalds was justly accused for wrong doing in this case. But I don't get the hatetrid of McDonald's as a company.
They never say eat with us every day. They offer healthier options.
Oh they advertise towards kids. It is up to the parents to know that eating out is a rare treat not a nutrition plan.
They pay just as well if not better than Burger King, Wendies and Yumm food.
Now if want some bad business behavior Burger King sell to Tim Horton to avoid taxes.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I do find it hard to believe that the WORLD Health Organisation gave their numbers primarily in Fahrenheit.
And, as you're probably implying here, they didn't.
The only place where, as a Yank, I might currently find Fahrenheit more familiar than Celsius are 1) "how hot/cold is it in here/out there?" and 2) "do I have a fever?", just because I'm used to the ranges; living outside Yankland I'd probably pick up the "yow it's {hot,cold} out there!" and "better take it easy and stay in bed today" values pretty quickly.
65C and 149F are both "OK, how hot is that in real-world terms?" values for me; 65C is no more "so what does that mean in real life?" than is 149F. I know the water was 100C/212F at one point (when the teakettle was whistling), but I don't know how hot it was when 1) I took the first "a bit hot, I'll let it cool down" sip, 2) when I actually started drinking it, and 3) right now (although it's probably well below 35C, and perhaps even below 30C, now).
Forcing your body to replicate cells more often leads to a higher chance of a mutation - that couldn't be more obvious. The more times you attempt a clean copy, the more chances for a bad copy. I think this would apply to any case where cells are constantly being damaged and repaired (sunburn).
Why would "Nature" (which is not a willful entity) "want" to make sure that eternal life doesn't happen? By the way, when a bacterium divides, or when a sperm (alive) and egg (alive) join, guess what -- they stay alive. The germline cells are, in a very real sense, immortal. They can die by the usual physical means (e.g. getting crushed, eaten, etc...) but are nonetheless the means and result of rejuvenation.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
within the temperature range recommended by the National Coffee Association [ncausa.org] and Bunn [bunn.com],
Two organizations that are far more concerned with the sale of coffee than safety. Whether there were dozens of other restaurants doing the same thing doesn't make it OK. It just means more companies are doing something unsafe. There is no reason to serve a drink just shy of boiling. Especially when cups can fail and nobody can drink it at that temperature anyway.
They were caused by HER spilling the coffee she knew to be hot. If you buy a knife and cut yourself like an idiot, can you sue for the knife being too sharp?
There's a difference. The purpose of the knife is to be sharp enough to cut things. The purpose of coffee is to be hot enough to drink, not cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns. If the temperature exceeds the purpose, there's no good reason - especially since cups and lids can fail (especially when you're a mass market chain who goes as cheap as they can on things like that).
You can say the verdict was absurd, but the medical bills were just as absurd.
I will second the opinion that McDonald's gets more flack than they deserve most of the time, but I think you're letting them off the hook too easily in this case. Not only did they treat this woman very poorly, not only did they know that serving coffee so hot was a risk, but they kept right on serving their coffee at this temperature even after this case was resolved. This shouldn't be brushed aside.
McFact 1: MCDonald's knows that people like their coffee hotter than they can drink, as they rarely drink it immeidately, and often take it to another desintation, like work, to drink it, or like to hold the hot cup to warm cold hands.
McFact 2: coffee should be brewed at near-boiling, so "proper" temperature coffee is, by definition, stale.
McFact 3: serving cold coffee would lose them more money than the suits (at least according to bean counters, probably hired from Ford, after they were fired for counting the Pinto's beans).
McFact 3: the person in question literally poured it on herself. She took off the lid, that prevents deformation of the circular opening of the cup, then crushed the cup with her legs, forcing the liquid out and onto her body. Had she left the lid on, or used a cup holder, the incident would never have happened.
Learn to love Alaska
Damn it, look what you did. You brought up the McDonald's Hot Coffee lawsuit on Slashdot, which always elicits 50+ posts of pedantic nerds re-debating the merits of the suit. Let it go, people. That was years ago.
Coffee is to be served hot.
No, not nearly that hot. Most drip coffee machines *brew* it at the McDonald's temperature, but it is kept at a much lower temperature (around 160F) in the carafe. One reason for this is that it rapidly loses quality if you keep it too hot.
People know what temperature coffee is almost universally served at, and they take the appropriate care. If you fill a cup of coffee from a coffee machine to the brim and carry it around, you just don't need to be that careful because it's just not that hot (unless it's from McDonald's). If you fill the same cup to the brim with water at a full rolling boil out of a pot, you're damned well going to be instinctively much more careful with it, because a small splash could give you serious burns.
You may now post one of your typical obscenity-laced abusive replies. It won't make you any less wrong.
I wouldn't know, I don't eat their food as I don't find it appealing. Sure Mr AC was being a bit of a douche, but the facts were right - what did you want me to do, edit the post so it was more palatable?
Never been modded down for suggesting someone be modded up though, so people are probably a little sen-si-tive about the issue of criticizing McDonalds.
My concern was the lady who got hurt was being derided because people think she was being litigious, when in reality she suffered burns due to a company who didn't care enough about their customers to not have malfunctioning cup lids on super hot coffee served by industrial grade machines. What's the problem with turning them down a bit and why did it take a court case to do so?
They were told people were getting hurt, they did nothing, then the person who had the courage to face a multi-billion dollar company and all it's resources so others wouldn't get hurt gets ridiculed by people who haven't bothered to check the facts. Why should this poor woman suffer humiliation on top of injury when company X has millions of dollars of advertising money the news agencies want access to and can shape opinion.
There is a reason you aren't supposed to advertise to kids, so parents don't get nagged. They do and they all seem like a good reason for some vitrol and hatred to me.
So I don't really understand why you are shilling in marketing speak about 'healthy options', it sounds to me a lot like 'lite cigarettes'. Just don't try to allude that they care about anything else than another dollar.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Why the fuck was she trying to drink while driving? Why the fuck was she holding the coffee between her legs while driving?
She wasn't driving. She was in the passenger seat and the car was parked.
The "195 - 205 F" recommended temperature range you quote is the brewing temperature, not the serving temperature. Unless McDonalds serves each cup as soon as it's brewed, and I doubt that they are, they are purposely holding the temperature high before serving it. In fact, keeping brewed coffee hot diminishes its flavor, so what they are doing makes no sense except to keep some customers from complaining that by the time they brought their cup of coffee to the office it wasn't hot anymore.
They actually said 65C, in case anyone was wondering why it was a strange number (149F).
I really wish people would report what WHO actually said, and then put the equivalent units in brackets:
"... at temperatures hotter than 65C (149F) ..."
I also wish people would report in SI units always. Put local units also, but always have SI, either as the primary number, or a secondary in brackets. The preference would be SI as primary and local in brackets as secondary. (remembering, of course, that 6.6bn people use SI units, and 350-400m use those other ones)
But that just my wish... I know it'll likely not happen. But one can always wish and hope...
Serving at a temperature has absolutely nothing to do with consuming at that temperature.
Hot drinks are served hot because that brings out more subtle aromas when your mouth is around the surface of the drink and nose is just above it. If you take in a very small sip, you are not scalded for 3 reasons :
1. You might suck in the foam, that is of slightly lower temperature, and very low specific heat being mainly air.
2. Even if it is not foam, a sample from the surface is of a lower temperature than from deep within the cup. This way you can enjoy the aroma longer - which is over half the fun in most hot drinks anyway.
3. Heat from a very small sip quickly dissipates around your external skin - which is typically colder than internal body parts like gums, back of the tongue etc.
There are restaurants allowing / encouraging people to barbecue their food themselves - it doesn't mean people have to eat the 400 degree F food straight from the barbecue, or poke their eyes with firewood at 1000 degree F. All Americans should sue their own mothers for not permanently attaching glasses at birth which read "Caution : life has risks", except of course the mothers who have been prudent enough to do this.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Now I admit McDonalds was justly accused for wrong doing in this case. But I don't get the hatetrid of McDonald's as a company.
American burger chains have historically been known for some very bad practices; McDonald was for many years the largest or even the only one in many countries, so they have become the posterboy for what they all used to do. It is true that they have all changed their behaviours somewhat, after consumer pressure and also because people started abandoning them in favour of smaller burger restaurants with significantly better quality food. But I can still remember, not so many years ago, when we used to refer to a BigMac as 'the vegetarian option' because of the obviously high content of soy bean in what should have been beef. So, they may be OK now (I only eat there when I really have no other options), but there are solid, historical reasons why they have a bad reputation. It is just another demonstration of the fact that it is very easy to destroy trust, and it takes very long time to repair it afterwards.
And another thing: the fact that these companies are so very American doesn't help. This may easily be seen simply as anti-Americanism, but it isn't, at least not in the usual sense. What people in America see as cozy, folksy-wolksy quirkyness, too often comes across as jarringly bizarre in Europe, fairly or unfairly. As an example, I came across a web page for some sort of food-fair - the one thing that made almost retch was the "deep fried butter"; and then there are the eating competitions. I try to be open to the suggestion that Americans see these things as fun, but to many in Europe, it does not inspire a lot of trust in the judgement of the people at McDonals, when the assure us that their prodcts are "good food": we have seen what Americans think of as food. And I don't think I am a prude when it comes to food - I have tried things like silk worms, birds nests, sea cucumbers and other regional delicacies (not that I liked them much) but I really couldn't get myself to try deep fried butter.
Tea doesn't have to be poured down your throat at the same temperature as in the cup. FYI.
When a hot drink is sold, it a lot about how LONG it will remain hot enough without spending on insulating container, rather than how high the temperature is right now. A simple plastic cap does triple duty as structural support to paper cup, protecting some aroma from escaping, and a rudimentary insulation.
PS : As far as tea is concerned, many teas - especially high quality ones, are even brewed at a lower temperature. 75-80 degree C is common. Some do have subtle aromas that escape at higher temperatures - seller of such a tea obviously won't serve it too hot.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Arguably the most stomach-churning food I've ever seen came from the Americans:- Pork brains in milk gravy (More here).
:-6
It's the pink-coloured "milk gravy" that makes this truly nauseating.
I mean, really? And you have the nerve to get squeamish about haggis, FFS?!
Never mind the fact that hot dogs are probably as bad (in terms of what they contain) as haggis, if not far worse. Of course, *they* have the advantage of being ludicrously processed to the extent that there's no sign of their origins for ignorance-is-bliss Americans who like to argue about whether ketchup or mustard is the preferred topping for their sausageful of ground-to-atomic-size pigs' lips and assholes...
Pork brains in milk gravy, though? So far ahead of either in the retch-inducing stakes it's not even funny.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
>> 149 degrees Fahrenheit
I don't drink at Fahrenheit temperatures, so I should be safe.
aaaaaaa
Coffee is to be served hot. There's no problem with serving it hotter than other restaurants do. I'd see that as a good thing. Unless you can point to standards and regulations that require coffee to be served below a certain temperature, your "McFact No. 1" is a failure.
Can you recognize that there is a temperature at which McDonalds would serve coffee that would be too hot?
Or do you want there to be standards and regulations, and until there are, what do you want McDonald's to do? Serve coffee? Stop serving coffee? Not be idiots, serving coffee they know can cause severe burns?
Hot coffee can cause burns. McDonalds settling cases is no different than a super market settling cases when idiots slip and fall despite the wet floor signs. it does not indicate a problem with the coffee, it indicates problems with the customers (they're idiots) and the legal system (it's easier to pay idiots to go away than it is to fight them in court and hope the idiots on the jury side with you against a fellow idiot). "McFact No. 2 is a failure.
Not at all, it indicates a failure to address a problem because they believed they had a cheaper option. McDonald's found out that the public in the form of this jury didn't buy it. So perhaps they changed their behavior.
Go to McDonalds. They add the cream and sugar.
I don't care how serious the woman's injuries were. They were caused by HER spilling the coffee she knew to be hot. If you buy a knife and cut yourself like an idiot, can you sue for the knife being too sharp? But what if you like, cut yourself really badly? Does that somehow change who is culpable? (I wouldn't be surprised if you could trot out cases where exactly this happened. That doesn't make the reasoning any less ludicrous, however.). "McFact No. 3" is a failure.
Let's say the knife was stored in a case provided with it, but it was designed improperly, and cut through it? would you blame the manufacturer or not? What if the knife instead of cutting through your flesh, cut through your bone, your car, and in effect, was a light-saber? Would you say that's a problem?
I get it, you want to characterize it as the actions of an idiot. That's the story YOU want to push.
What about other stories? How do you react? We don't know, because, of course, you want to come across in a certain way, without realizing how you really sound.
Yes, the little old lady said she was a nice little old lady and only wanted her medical bills paid. Is she also selling a used car that she only ever drove on Sundays, to and from church? "McFact No. 4" is a failure because it has nothing to do with anything.
Not at all! Her character was widely assailed during this case, she was portrayed as seeking a payday. Or an idiot. Just like you did.
That's why this is relevant. Either she's an idiot, and behaved improperly, or not.
A rando (no typo here) McDonald's employee claimed McDonald's was aware of the risk? Of course they're aware. They're also aware of the risk of operating a drive through window. People could incorrectly drive their cars and hit things! Further, the rando employee cannot speak to whether or not "most customers wouldn't think it was possible". If such testimony as admitted, McDonald's lawyers failed. "McFact No. 5" is a failure. A rando employee's comments about McDonald's awareness that coffee is hot doesn't mean McDonald's is at fault for someone spilling coffee on themselves. Coffee being hot, and hot things causing burns, is common sense. You'd be hard pressed to find an animal that doesn't know this, let alone a human.
What are you talking about? Animals don't know that well at all, that's why Zoos and other animal care facilities have to take SEVERE precautions when it comes to stuff being hot. It's like you know nothing about facilities management. So do areas that have children. You may
Please stop diverting the topic towards irrelevant defenses of entitlement culture and the obsolescence of a responsible public.
The article claims a link between coffee and tea to cancer, but only via the temperature. So the pertinent question is:
HOW IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAN HOT WATER? Yes, I actually read the PDF document of the WHO report itself. It does not mention hot water, only that "hot beverages" can have a carcinogenic effect. Is click-baiting the only driving force behind "scientific" articles nowadays?
Here, let me try:
"Study finds water linked to not only cancer, but global terrorism and kittens drowning."
(Notice this is all true, but pointless.)
You are looking at it the wrong way.
Who cares about the "idiot" who gets rewarded? This is about holding corporations accountable for dangerous products.
It's sort of like a car manufacturer who makes a car without any safety features. If someone gets hurt and the company knew that they could have made a safer product but didn't, that's a problem that should be corrected.
The law suit is about correcting a problem that then benefits everyone. Forget about the fact that one person got some monetary gain (at the cost of severe pain and suffering). That's not important.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.