Center for Consumer Freedom

 We can always count on the vegan-lifestyle pushers at the woefully misnamed Physician Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and its phony “Cancer Project” spinoff to bash treasured American traditions that involve eating meat. For the second summer in a row, hot dogs are bearing the brunt of their slander – this time, with a focus on ballpark franks.

The Cancer Project’s PETA drones want Major League Baseball to send fans into a panic over their favorite frankfurters by running billboards that compare hot dogs to cigarettes. The first ad appeared at Busch Stadium in St. Louis in anticipation of next week's All-Star game. And you can soon expect that message to pop up at a ballpark near you:

The Cancer Project hopes that baseball begins issuing the warnings at the All-Star game in St. Louis on Tuesday. It suggested this: "WARNING: Eating hot dogs and other processed meats is associated with increased risk of cancer.”

It wants to spread the message at ballparks because people eat a lot of hot dogs there – an estimated 30 million this season.

The Cancer Project can take the fun out of eating a hot dog, no question.

There’s one other thing the Cancer Project is good at: overstating their case.

You may remember those fear-mongering ads of young children who claimed meat gave them colon cancer from last summer’s war on foot-longs. Of course, none of the kids were actually sick, and the general scientific consensus was that the Cancer Project grossly exaggerated any purported cancer risk. In fact, Harvard researchers studied this precise issue and concluded that there’s no evidence of a link between meat consumption and colorectal cancer.

This most recent campaign is strike two against the Cancer Project. And we’re calling “foul ball” on the group’s scare tactics. Would someone please send them back to the minors?