The Mayor Bloomberg initiative (grandiosly referred to as the National Salt Reduction Program), possibly dreamed up by activist groups and leveraged through cronies at New York's health department and their friends at health commission offices around the country, reminds me of something I wrote some time back when I did the history of “Typhoid Mary.” It concerns the abuse of power exercised by Boards of Health and Health Commissions who feel they can, without fear of repercussion, dispense with civil rights in order to execute policies, even if there is no solid evidence to support them. In doing so, these bureaucrats make the self-indulgent leap from civil servants to civil masters without any permission from those they swore to serve.
The quote I am reminded of was by Dr. Josephine Baker, the person who first managed to take 'Typhoid' Mary Mallon into custody. Everyone else looked at Mary's decades-long illegal detention with a clear conscience after her death in custody. Only Dr. Baker spoke up and soberly stated what Mary, a poor Irish immigrant, was up against.
“Typhoid Mary made me realize for the first time what sweeping powers are vested in Public Health authorities. There is very little that a Board of Health cannot do in the way of interfering with personal and property rights for the supposed protection of the public health. Boards of Health have judicial, legislative and executive powers... There have been many typhoid carriers recognized since her time, but she was the first charted case and for that distinction she paid in a life-long imprisonment.”
We see the same mindless, hob-nail boot trampling going on with salt today. C.S. Lewis once said, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive... those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
A muddle of disingenuous advocates, ambitious civil servants and politicians, operating with manipulated evidence, has chosen salt reduction as their cause célèbre. These make-believe crusaders are infused with thought, “Focus on the journey, not the destination.”
Unfortunately, for the public there is a destination, and it is their freedoms and their health.
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