'Daily Show' Hot Dog Campaign Investigation Lambasts PCRM Stance (VIDEO)

HuffPost Food has covered the fishy scare tactics used by the Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a pseudoscientific vegan advocacy group, before. The highlight so far was a billboard outside the Indianapolis Speedway that compared the health risks of hot dogs to those of cigarettes. The billboard got quite a bit of press -- it's an audacious statement, though only some of the coverage mentioned the shadiness of the PCRM. We always had a hunch there was a great piece waiting to be done on these guys. And now, thanks to the Daily Show, we have it, for your viewing above.

In the clip, correspondant Aasif Mandvi talks to representatives from the Hot Dog & Sausage Council and from the PCRM. He gets some mileage out of the former when she reveals that her nickname is the Queen of Wien, but it's really the latter who gets the brunt of his mockery.

The PCRM doctor, Neal Bernard, MD, sports the kind of bronzed complexion that gives the impression that he was too busy reading warnings on cured meats to catch up on the past few decades' worth of medical literature on tanning beds. He tries to make the argument that hot dogs are addictive -- so Mandvi, hilariously, asks him whether they're addictive like heroin, crack cocaine or The Wire.

Watch the full clip, which includes more than one shot of champion hot dog eater Takeru Kobayashi, above.