The Associated Press reports that the kid doesn't actually have cancer and neither do the other two children in the ad who claim to be so afflicted. The commercial, paid for by the pro-vegetarian Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, attempts to vilify the hot dog and stoke fears of colon cancer. They say it's just a dramatization, but the point is to highlight research linking processed meats, including hot dogs, with higher odds of getting colon cancer. Still, such studies are based on adults--not kids.
So can a hot dog kill you? They are high in fat and salt and packed with sodium nitrate and nitrate, commonly added preservatives and color-enhancers. Nitrates have been linked to colon cancer in animals, but not proven to cause cancer in humans. Obviously, hot dogs are not a health food, but nutritionists are pretty much in agreement that eating one every now and then won't hurt you. "My concern about this campaign is it's giving the indication that the occasional hot dog in the school lunch is going to increase cancer risk," Colleen Doyle, the American Cancer Society's nutrition director, told AP. "An occasional hot dog isn't going to increase that risk."
Hot dogs can cause DNA to mutate and increase your risk for cancer.
What is in a hot dog? They do contain muscle meat trimmings from pork or beef, and the government allows them to contain pig snouts and stomachs, cow lips and livers, goat gullets and lamb spleens. (The label is supposed to say if these are in it.) They do not contain animal eyeballs, hooves or genitals.
