THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040218
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940604 LENGTH: Medium
A cancer research journal reports that a link might exist between hot dogs and a higher rate of brain tumors and leukemia among children.
{REST} Even the researchers are cautioning against overreacting, as the studies are preliminary and based on a relatively small sample of patients. They also say the statistical clues do not necessarily prove that hot dogs alone caused the increased rates of disease.
One of the medical studies, reported in the journal Cancer Causes and Control, found that children who eat more than a dozen hot dogs a month run nine times the risk of developing childhood leukemia.
Two other studies suggest that children whose mothers ate at least one hot dog a month during pregnancy run twice the risk of developing brain tumors, as do children whose fathers ate hot dogs regularly before conception.
The studies might help explain why cases of childhood leukemia and brain tumors have been increasing over the past two decades, said epidemiologist John Peters of the University of Southern California.
``This is not a hazard at the level of tobacco smoke or high-fat diets,'' said epidemiologist David Savitz of the University of North Carolina, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Savitz wrote the study on pregnant women.
``The rational response,'' he said, ``would be a small modification of your consumption.''
The response was less tempered at Smithfield Foods Inc., which makes about a million pounds of hot dogs a week, according to Robert W. Manly, executive vice president.
``To me,'' Manly said, ``it is very typical of those people who are looking for what is called the `carcinogen of the week.' ''
Manly was particularly critical of the medical journal, which does not submit its articles for peer review or critique by other researchers in the field.
``It comes in a darned publication called Cancer Causes and Control,'' Manly said. ``Now what else is that likely to contain except potential media hype about problems? There is no peer review, there's conflicting data . . . it's so typical.
``This thing is wrong, and the way in which the material is presented is wrong. I think this epidemiologist from Southern Cal should have his license revoked.''
Gwaltney of Smithfield Ltd., another major meatpacker in the region, declined to make anyone available to comment on the report.
Processed meats have been under scrutiny for several years because of the use of nitrites to keep them fresh. The body converts nitrites into nitrosamines, which have caused cancers in animals during laboratory experiments.
The nitrite studies have also been contested by the meatpacking industry. ``There are more nitrites in a bunch of celery than there are in a hot dog,'' Manly said.
Still, the scientists involved in the hot dog studies believe that the results are significant and merit more intensive study.
Brain tumors and leukemia have increased more than twice as fast as childhood cancer overall in the 17 years such data has been collected. Cancer among children younger than 14 has increased by an average of 0.8 percent per year, while acute lymphoblastic leukemia has increased by 1.7 percent per year. Brain tumors have increased by 1.8 percent per year over the same period.
Even so, the cancers are considered very rare. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia affects about three in every 10,000 children.
{KEYWORDS} CANCER HOT DOG
by CNB