Put the Wiener Down, and Back Away Slowly

The first paragraph from this story says it all:

Pediatricians in the United States are calling for hot dogs to be redesigned to reduce the risk of children choking on them. In a new policy statement published yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics says hot dogs are the food most commonly linked with choking deaths among children.

If these stalwarts of child safety stopped with a recommendation, that would be one thing, but they didn’t. The article goes on, “It [the policy statement] also calls for warning labels to be mandatory on foods that pose a choking danger to children and for better surveillance systems to warn the public of hazards.” The policy statement actually suggests a nationwide “food-related choking-incident surveillance” registry, no doubt mandated by regulation.

National ID cards was bad enough. Then they came for the Internet. Now the simple wiener—a ubiquitous tube of mystery meat around which many a childhood memory is entwined—is under attack. When will it end?!

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1:18 pm on February 23, 2010