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*In a conversation with PCRM’s Patrick Sullivan he confirmed that the organization has accepted PETA funding in its past, but does not currently. He said the PCRM did not file a lawsuit against the University of Washington, but rather a federal complaint with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to look into UW's treatment of ferrets. Sullivan said that the AMA resolutions linked were voted down and though it was brought to the attention of the AMA that there less than 5 percent of the PCRM's members were physicians, Sullivan says that today, of the roughly 100,000 or so members of the PCRM, around 10,000 or 10 percent are physicians. This post has been changed to reflect those changes. We have also corrected a misspelling of the PCRM's president's name. 8.5.2011.
*After speaking to an AMA representative, we have removed a link to a resolution 506 which did not pass--the resolution included the 5% statistic Sullivan has rebuked. 8.8.2011
Players: Susan Levin nutrition educator for the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM); Janet Riley, president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage and Council
The Opening Serve: The PCRM erected a billboard equating sausages to cancer near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway reading: "Hot Dogs Can Wreck Your Health." Pictured were frankfurters in a cigarette pack, with a link to cancerproject.org, a website which the PCRM runs. "A hot dog a day could send you to an early grave," writes PCRM nutrition education director Susan Levin in a statement on July 25. "Processed meats like hot dogs can increase your risk for diabetes, heart disease, and various types of cancer. Like cigarettes, hot dogs should come with a warning label that helps racing fans and other consumers understand the health risk." Levin goes on to say that one 50-gram serving of processed meat (which she states is around the amount in a hot dog) per day increases the risk of colorectal cancer, by 21 percent on average.