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The Biggest Delusion In The History Of Preventive Medicine? (2/3/12)
According to two top medical researchers, the hype behind the wild claims of the “sodium police” isn’t, well, worth its salt. Salt is routinely demonized in the media, by regulators, and activist groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which has called salt “the deadly white powder you already snort.” In the past year, though, we’ve seen salt vindicated time and time again through scientific research. The food police and nanny-state regulators now seemingly want to double down with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) asking for public...
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Publicity Hound Physician: Require ID For Soda (2/2/12)
“I'm actually trying to undo the nanny state.” Coming as it did from a public health researcher, that sounds like a breath of fresh air, right? Has Kelly Brownell met his professorial arch-nemesis? Sadly, no. That is in fact the Orwellian musing of Dr. Robert Lustig, whose new commentary in the journal Nature calls for, among other draconian infringements on personal choice, massive taxes on sugar-containing foods, laws to restrict the amount of sugar in food, and even carding people who buy soda. What’s all...
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New Nature Comment Piece Sour On Sugar (2/1/12)
Center for Consumer Freedom Responds to Authors’ Absurd Call to Treat Sugar Like Alcohol and Tobacco Today, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is firing back against a Comment piece published in this week’s edition of Nature by Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt, and Claire Brindis that calls for strict regulations and high taxes on products containing sugar. The authors argue that sugar is “toxic” to our health and should thus be regulated like alcohol or tobacco. Lustig and his co-authors put forward laughable suggestions such as...
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Soda Taxes Are Ineffective, Outdated (1/30/12)
As expected, the new year brought a new push from do-gooder public health activists intent on taxing soft drinks. In Oregon, advocates proposed a ballot initiative to place a penny-per-ounce wholesale tax on sugary soft drinks. A Portland physician modeled the measure after a 2009 proposal by Kelly “Twinkie Tax” Brownell from Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, which endorsed the tax as a way to combat childhood obesity. However, The Oregonian - the largest paper in the state - is skeptical that the tax could slim down residents, and an NPR food blogger also questions the real-world effects of such a tax. The...
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