August 28, 2008 CHICAGO (AP) -- In an Aug. 27 story about a new TV ad linking hot dogs with cancer, The Associated Press, relying on figures provided by a nutrition adviser to the American Institute for Cancer Research, erroneously reported average risks for colon cancer and how eating hot dogs affects those risks. Karen Collins said she misstated the average adult's lifetime risk for getting colorectal cancer, which is about 5 percent, not 5.8 percent.
She said she also miscalculated population-level risks of eating one hot dog a day for several years. That would increase the number of Americans who get colorectal cancer each year from 50 per 100,000 to 60 per 100,000 people -- not from 58 per 100,000 to 70 per 100,000, as she had stated.
She said the level of risk is smaller for eating a hot dog once or twice a month but that it can't be precisely quantified. It would not mean up to a 1.4 percent increase in colon cancer risk, as she had indicated.
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