Sooooo ... do you think they would have banned it if it had been an exercise commercial, telling the viewer that laziness causes impotence? Sorry, I think not. (And moreover, I think a commercial like that would have been remembered as the cleverest and most humorous of the bunch.)

Personally, I think PETA proves that vegetarians are "damned if they do, damned if they don't." Or, put in your terms, "tacky if they use pop culture, preachy if they stick to message."

If eating meat really made one impotent shouldn't evolution have taken care of meat-eaters along time ago--say, 5,000 years ago?

i think that, well, at least they should have tried to prove somehow the accuracy of the commercial, i mean, how can eating meat make you impotent??!!! as the last comment says, eating meat has been the rule for thousands of years. moreoever, i never read such a thing in discovery magazine...lol

In fairness to PETA (four words I never thought I'd type together), I'd imagine that eating enough meat will make you impotent. Assuming that you have a serious fat-and-protein over-rich diet, you do no exercise, and in general you behave in an incredibly unhealthy fashion, meat-eating probably could cause impotence. (Hardening of the arteries, reduced blood flow... you can see where this is going.)

So, technically-speaking, I'm sure that on some level the phrase "meat can cause impotence" is true. I'd also be pretty certain that overeating anything to the point that it's grossly unhealthy for you will eventually muck up your sexually chemistry. It's one of those statements that is only true insofar as it's meaningless.

Is anyone here seriously suggesting fact-checking all commercials before they hit the air?

... wait a minute, how DO they cram all that graham? This calls for an investigation!

Anthony, yeah, good call. Drinking too much water will kill you too. Ergo, water causes impotence.

Well, I'm probably (read: definitely) not qualified to comment on what goes against truth in advertising laws. On the other hand, John, you need to have some appreciation of scale. I would expect a slightly higher level of argument from someone trying to convince me to make a large change in my daily behavior than from someone trying to get me to change my breakfast cereal. And the thousands of McDonald's-chomping men who aren't impotent might at least have been interested in some explanation.

The reason why CBS denied that ad was not about whether or not the claim was true or whether it was "too tacky". It was because they claimed it was too politically controversial. Which can probably be translated to mean that it would offend the beef lobby, since it's a pretty hard claim to say that vegetarianism is the hot topic of abortion or religion. And too say that it is more tacky than the regular boob beer girls is just silly.

This is interesting b/c inadequate protein (which lowers hormone levels)-a problem for many vegetarians (esp. vegans who give up dairy as well) is linked to a low sex dirve.

May be it does make us tracky. But meat surely makes one impotent.