Hot dogs are not considered as very desirable by anyone who has an interest in nutrition - full of fat and made from all the left-overs  (”lips and ass- holes” as Mrs.Gagg so delicately puts it).But they are a great American tradition, and no one could conceive of going to watch a ball game or having a cook out without them.

So the idea of redesigning them is kind of sacrilegious - but that’s what the American Academy of Pediatricians wants.

                                                                                                                                                                      An Icon  

The AAP recently came out with a report criticizing the lack of labeling for choking hazard. They are the perfect storm of a product for plugging up a child’s airway. They are “cylindrical, airway sized and compressible, which allows it to fit tightly into a child’s hypopharynx and completely occlude the airway” the AAP complains.

“If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child’s airway, it would be a hot dog,” notes Gary Smith MD, statement author and Director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio - who is also a Pediatric ER doctor and says of hot dogs, “to try to get them out once they’re wedged in, it’s almost impossible.”

Prevention of food-related choking among children in the United States has been inadequately addressed at the federal level rails the AAP - though they do warn about other problem foods like grapes and peanuts.

More than 10,000 children under 14 go to the emergency room each year after choking on food, and up to 77 die. Seventeen percent of these are caused by hot dogs, and the AAP would like to see hot dogs redesigned.

And I guess the hell with tradition.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.