(Reuters) - California is examining new World Health Organization findings to determine whether to add red meat and foods like hot dogs, sausages and bacon to a cancer-alert list, setting the stage for a potential battle with the meat industry over warning labels. 
 
 Bacon is fried up in a pan in a kitchen in this photo illustration in Golden, Colorado, October 26, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking 
 
 The inclusion of meat and processed meat on the list could reduce consumer demand, hurting major producers and processors like Hormel Foods Corp and JBS USA. It could also open the door wider for litigation against meat companies from consumers diagnosed with certain types of cancer. 
 
 California has often been at the forefront of consumer-oriented initiatives, particularly regarding agriculture. It rolled out laws for larger chicken cages and restrictions on antibiotic use for livestock ahead of much of the rest of the country. 
 
 Now the meat industry is focused on what the state will do after a unit of the WHO on Monday said processed meat can cause colorectal cancer in humans. It said the risk of developing cancer is small, but increases with the amount of meat consumed. The meat industry maintains that its products are safe to eat as part of a balanced diet. 
 
 California’s Proposition 65, an initiative approved in 1986, requires that the state keep a list of all chemicals and substances known to increase cancer risks. Producers of such products are required to provide “clear and reasonable” warnings for consumers. 
 
 Some Proposition 65 experts expect California to add processed meats to the list. Typically, once an item is added, it is up to the maker to prove to the state that its product is not dangerous enough to warrant a warning label, experts say. 
 
 Starbucks Corp is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by a non-profit group in California over whether its coffee contains enough of the carcinogen acrylamide to pose a cancer risk, and should be labeled accordingly under Proposition 65. 
 
 The meat industry is adamant it will escape having to put warning labels on packages of bacon or hot dogs. It says a 2009 California appellate court ruling confirmed federal authority over labels for meat from plants inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
 
 “Meats will never have to be labeled in the state of California,” said Jim Coughlin, a consultant hired by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Still, he thinks processed meats will make it onto the Proposition 65 list. 
 
 The situation on labeling processed meats is not known, according to the state agency assessing the WHO findings, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. 
 
 Federal law pre-empts warnings on fresh meat, but “our understanding of how federal law governs processed meats is less clear,” Allan Hirsch, chief deputy director of the California office, told Reuters. 
 
 “We can’t tell you if Proposition 65 warnings would be pre-empted if processed meats were added to the Proposition 65 list.” 
 
 Labeling would be a bigger blow to meat companies than inclusion on the Proposition 65 list because labels could confront consumers front and center at stores and restaurants, say industry analysts. It is not known exactly what warnings might say. 
 
 The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer put processed meats in its “group one” category, along with tobacco and asbestos, products for which the agency says there is “sufficient evidence” of cancer links. 
 
 Any move to add red or processed meat to the Proposition 65 list would be challenged by the industry, said Mark Dopp, senior vice president of regulatory affairs and general counsel of the North American Meat Institute (NAMI). 
 
 The institute represents companies including Cargill Inc, Tyson Foods Inc and Kraft Heinz Co. 
 
 “The state can’t force a label on federally inspected product,” said Janet Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council and a NAMI senior vice president. 
 
 But a legal fight could follow. Private lawyers, or even the state of California, could file lawsuits in an attempt to overturn the 2009 ruling and force meat companies to apply labels, Coughlin said. 
 
 If that happens, NAMI “would wave the court of appeals decision. It’d be a stupid suit to even try to initiate because it’s already been decided,” he said. 
 
 Red meat is less likely to be added to California’s list because it was classified as “probably carcinogenic,” Coughlin said. That put it in the WHO unit’s “group 2A” category, joining glyphosate, the active ingredient in many weedkillers, made by Monsanto Co. 
 
 Since the WHO’s classification of glyphosate in March, Monsanto has faced a slew of lawsuits from personal injury law firms around the United States that claim the company’s Roundup herbicide has caused cancer in farm workers and others exposed to the chemical. 
 
 In September, the California environmental office gave notice that it intended to list glyphosate under Proposition 65. 
 
 Monsanto has asked state officials to withdraw the plan, arguing that California’s actions could be considered illegal because they are not considering valid scientific evidence. ||||| Joe Raedle via Getty Images The World Health Organization on Monday announced it was classifying processes meats and red meats as carcinogens. 
 
 Bacon lovers, it may not be easy to brush off the World Health Organization's new ruling that red and processed meats cause cancer -- at least not in California. 
 
 Following WHO's Monday announcement classifying processed meats -- such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs and ham -- and red meats -- including beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse and goat -- as carcinogens, California should now require those products sold in the state to carry a warning label in accordance with Proposition 65, says the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. 
 
 “The World Health Organization has put these meats in the same category as cigarettes in terms of the death and danger they deliver,” Stephanie Feldstein, population and sustainability director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement sent to The Huffington Post. “Now, California must follow suit with public health warnings on the label. And it’s no surprise: the science has been clear that these meats are bad for people, not to mention for wildlife and the planet.” 
 
 Prop 65, passed in 1986, requires California to create a state list of all chemicals and substances identified by WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer as "carcinogenic to humans," the most dangerous level, which processed meats fall under; "probably carcinogenic to humans ... with sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals," the second-most dangerous level, which red meat falls under; and "possibly carcinogenic to humans ... with sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals." Businesses, the law notes, are required to provide a "clear and reasonable" warning before exposing anyone to a listed substance. 
 
 The warning may be in the form of a label on the meat's packaging, a sign or menu notation where the meat is sold or "a system of signs, public advertising identifying the system and toll-free information services," the law states. 
 
 The California attorney general's office, which is tasked with enforcing Prop 65, did not immediately return HuffPost's request for comment on how WHO's announcement will affect meat labeling in California. 
 
 Also on HuffPost: ||||| Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections.
– Roughly three decades ago, California's Proposition 65 came into being, and it's a proposition likely on the minds of many a processed meat producer this week. That's because Prop 65 forces the state to add any item known to up one's cancer risk to a list; products containing a listed item in an amount over a certain threshold must carry a "clear and reasonable warning." Should the state add processed meat to the list in the wake of the WHO report that found such meats can cause colorectal cancer, required labeling could follow. It isn't clear what sort of warnings would be required. The law states a suitable warning can include a note on packaging or a sign where a product is sold, for instance, per the Huffington Post. But even if meat makes the list, "meats will never have to be labeled in the state of California," a consultant with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association tells Reuters. He argues a 2009 court ruling confirmed the federal government has control over labels for meat from plants inspected by the US Department of Agriculture. He adds California could attempt to overturn that ruling, but the North American Meat Institute "would wave the court of appeals decision. It'd be a stupid suit to even try to initiate because it's already been decided." Reuters clarifies that "f ederal law pre-empts warnings on fresh meat." How the law applies to processed meat "is less clear," per the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment . (The meat industry isn't buying the WHO report.)