Hot dog 'must be redesigned to reduce choking hazard' It is one of America's greatest fast food favourites but now doctors have declared the humble hot dog a choking risk to children.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 7:00AM GMT 23 Feb 2010
The respected American Academy of Paediatrics is calling for sweeping changes in the way hot dogs are designed and labelled to minimise the chances of youngsters dying.
Every year food-related choking kills up to 77 children in the US and up to 15,000 more are treated in emergency rooms.
About 17 per cent of the food-related chokings are caused by hot dogs, according to a report by the academy.
It wants to see the shape of hot dogs "redesigned" to stop them lodging in children's throats.
The academy said: "Food manufacturers should design new foods, and redesign existing foods, including meat products, to avoid shapes, sizes, texture and other characteristics that increase choking risk to children."
Lead report author Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told USA Today: "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." "I'm a paediatric emergency doctor, and to try to get them out once they're wedged in, it's almost impossible." The academy also said other high-risk foods including raw carrots, grapes and apples, should be cut into pea-sized pieces for small children. Other risky foods included marshmallows and peanut butter which could form a "tenacious seal" in a child's airway.
US federal law requires choking warning labels on certain toys including small balls, balloons and games with small parts.
Unless food makers voluntarily put more warning labels on high-risk foods, there should be a similar mandate for food, the academy said.