PARIS - Doctors in wealthy countries have warned for years against eating too much meat. And now, the World Health Organization's cancer agency has issued its most definitive statement about the relationship between meat and cancer.

It says ham, hot dogs and other processed meats can cause colon, stomach and other cancers -- and that red meat is probably a cancer-causer as well. And it puts processed meats in the same danger category as smoking or asbestos.

Researchers from the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, released an evaluation of more than 800 studies from several continents about meat and cancer.

Meat industry groups argue that cancer is not caused by specific foods but by several factors.