It's funny because I had my child's pediatrician quote the research you mention about meat causing cancer when I told her my daughter had her first hot dog ever that very day. I didn't get into it with her, but she went on to say that hot dogs are just as dangerous as smoking and that if I'm worried about spacing out vaccinations to cut down on the dose of aluminum in my son's blood, I should be more concerned about cancer causing hot dogs.
I immediately realized how full of shit she was. I also think the WHO she mentioned is full of shit on this one too, because I've read the research, and the effect of smoking cigarettes is several orders of magnitude worse than eating processed meats. Putting them in the same category is disingenuous at best. This is notwithstanding the fact that the research hadn't elucidated which exact ingredient was supposedly increasing the risk of cancer. My guess is that it's the smoke, but you know, I've been wrong before. The hot dog I gave my daughter had little or no smoke flavoring in it, so I'm not worried in the least that she's going to get cancer from it. Oh yeah, and even if it does have smoke flavoring, she's only ever had one hotdog.
Point is, just because someone is credentialed and is supposed to know what they're talking about, doesn't mean they have the critical thinking skills to do their job correctly. Our Universities are filled with a bunch of parrots, and the best parrots get the best grades, along with the most advanced degrees (with exceptions of course). Now that I've been through that system, I have very little faith in credentials any more, and I always try to look at the data for myself. There's almost always some kind of political agenda behind this garbage you hear about in the news. People blogging and commenting on blog posts are usually even worse.