Richard L. Hanneman
Salt Institute
Salt and Health newsletter
Spring 2006
We trust government to provide scientifically-sound health advice. This trust is jolted when each day’s headlines announce another refutation of time-honored treatments, another medication or medical device withdrawn from the market, or another long-held dietary recommendation disputed loudly among the experts. Why are pills and policies plagued with confusion, contradictions, and controversy? The Task Force on Community Preventive Services, in practice, government public health decisions are often “…driven by crises, currently ‘hot’ issues, and concerns of organized interest groups,” and as a consequence, “policies and programs are frequently developed around anecdotal evidence and expert opinion rather than empirical evidence” We need evidence-based, outcomes-oriented public health policies will provide major societal benefits. Health policies that are not based in credible evidence serve to misdirect resources into “politically correct” interventions, with little or no benefit to the public for whom they were created. Such policies will disappoint in their results and undermine the credibility of public health leaders. We need policies based on the quality of the evidence, not the quantity of voices demanding this action or that. Consensus standards define how we should consider scientific evidence.