The last week has brought a media frenzy to the debate over population-wide salt reduction thanks to the hypocritical and nonsensical campaign by NYC's Mayor Bloomberg and his administration. The Salt Institute has been in the center of the fray as we seek to get fair media coverage from folks who parrot inaccurate sound bites based on faulty science and a political agenda based on a "villain of the day" mentality. We are happy to report we have made great strides in getting out "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say. SI staff appeared on CBS and Fox News, weighed in on approximately 20 interviews with print media and appeared on one national radio show and another large radio show in Miami (NYC's sixth borough).

In addition, the tide seems to be turning as the national sentiment is rejecting the nanny state mentality and seems keen on personal choice and liberty. There has been a shift in reporting on this issue since Bloomberg and company first publicly entertained the notion of population-wide sodium reduction one year ago. Perhaps our favorite editorial in the last week appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Smack is bad, but the crackdown is on salt by Eric Felten does a fine job of pointing out the lunacy of a city which teaches its residents how to properly shoot up heroin, but strong arms food producers into limiting sodium content. We, like Felten, join in a collective chorus of "huh?" John Stossel also did a fine job of making the case against government food nannies in this Fox News segment.

We are encouraged to see many rising up to fight back against nanny state public policy which ignores sound science. Fox News online ran a story "Restaurant chefs boiling over NYC Mayor's salt crackdown." And a new coalition has popped up to fight back: My Food. My Choice. is made up of businesses, restaurant owners and ethnic groups (they see the policy as an attack on ethnic cuisine) and consumers.