An article in Politico , a widely read DC paper, recently warned that President Obama and Congress are ramping up to impose a new era of public health activism unlike anything ever seen.
Michael Jacobson of CSPI gushed about the opportunities presented by this president, saying, “He has expressed more interest in preventing diseases and promoting health than any previous president. It is not a breath of fresh air. It is a tornado…This is really a rare opportunity to make progress on so many issues.” Jacobson’s favorite issue appears to be population-wide salt reduction.
According to Politico the president is “filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.”
In fact, many people were nervous after former NYC Public Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden was named director of the CDC. Frieden led the charge against trans fats, soft drinks and salt in the city. And Joshua Sharfstein, a new deputy commissioner at the FDA, created a Salt Task Force to study the “impact of excessive salt intake” in Baltimore, ignoring the scientific data which debunks the premise of population-wide salt reduction.
This doesn’t clearly divide along partisan lines. Some conservative members of Congress want to prohibit “junk food” under the federal food stamp program. While SI actively promotes a quality diet and certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone to eat “junk food” as a diet staple, we realize the slippery slope of bureaucrats deciding what is and is not junk food.
According to the Center for Consumer Freedom: “Get ready, because the ‘nanny state on steroids’ is going national.”
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