"If you were to find the best engineers in the world and ask them to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, you couldn't do much better than the hot dog," Dr. Gary Smith, lead author of the AAP policy statement, told AOL News. "It is the right shape and the right size to wedge itself in and completely block a child's airway. It's only a matter of minutes before permanent brain damage and death occur."
Marcio Sanchez, AP
A hot dog is "the right shape and the right size to wedge itself in and completely block a child's airway," said Dr. Gary Smith of the Americans Academy of Pediatrics.
The policy statement, published online in the March issue of the AAP's Parenting journal, also cites popcorn, nuts, grapes, seeds and raw carrots as "high-risk foods." But the hot dog has proven most treacherous, causing about 17 percent of food-related asphyxiations. About 10,000 children younger than 14 are rushed to the hospital each year after choking on food, and up to 77 young people die, the statement said.
All of this may be prevented, the academy says, with warning labels on packaging for hazardous foods, recalls on foods known to cause choking, and even the "redesign" of risky products like the hot dog.
"For many years, there have been mechanisms in place to protect children from choking on toys. The Consumer Products Safety Commission is a well-oiled machine in that regard," said Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. "We simply think that the same protection should be in place to prevent children from choking on food."
Some food packages that already feature warning labels could spread the trend, with voluntary help from the industry and the USDA, which has jurisdiction over meat products such as hot dogs. The Food and Drug Administration said it would review the AAP statement recommendation for recalls. That leaves a lingering question: How does one redesign the hot dog?
One way to cut down on a frank's choking risk would be to eliminate its cylindrical, potentially windpipe-lodging shape. The AAP's policy statement suggests cutting foods that present a risk to children in a way that changes their spherical nature, such as quartering grapes and slicing hot dogs into lengthwise strips. (New from Nathan's: the Hot Dog Strip?)
Smith says he doesn't have any design suggestions, but he bets an industrious designer might be able to whip something up, saying he believes "safety sells."
"Some entrepreneur can come out with the Safety Dog, some new design that is kid-friendly and fun to eat and has everything that a traditional hot dog has," Smith said.
He recalled the redesign of the small, round sucker candy of yesteryear, which was replaced by the Safety Pop, a flat candy with a looped handle that parents could easily pull from a child's throat.
Janet Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, said she supports better education about choking hazards, but she's skeptical about a new design for the hot dog.
"As a mother who has fed toddlers cylindrical foods like grapes, bananas, hot dogs and carrots, I 'redesigned' them in my kitchen by cutting them with a paring knife until my children were old enough to manage on their own," she told USA Today.
Redesigning the dog may sound preposterous, even unpatriotic to some, but Smith said reinvention is as about as American as, well, the hot dog.
"When I was a kid, I used to walk around with a slide rule," Smith said, referring to the predecessor to the pocket calculator. "Now we have iPods. People say, 'Oh you can't change the hot dog!' That's nothing in comparison to what we've done in America."
