SALT INSTITUTE AGREES WITH ABC-TV:
"JUNK SCIENCE" BEING USED TO SUPPORT FEDERAL DIETARY SALT REDUCTION POLICY
WASHINGTON, DC/January 10, 1997 – The Salt Institute has issued the following statement in response to the broadcast of ABC-TV’s "Junk Science: What You Know That May Not Be So" program by ABC reporter John Stossel which, among other segments, lambasted the federal government’s embrace of universal sodium restriction as a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
Salt Institute President Richard L. Hanneman states:
"John Stossel is like the little boy in the ‘Emperor's New Clothes’ because the government continues to fool itself. Even though the best analysis of clinical trials has clearly established that the benefits of salt restriction are limited to only a portion of the hypertensive population, itself only 18% of all Americans, the federal health bureaucracy thinks it can ignore the science and continue to recommend that everyone reduce salt intakes. The most compelling point in the broadcast was the discussion with the president of the American Society of Hypertension who authoritatively explained that science does not support universal sodium restriction and the government's health officer's weak response saying his personal study says it does. While ABC-TV found nine of ten cardiologists rejecting the validity of the government's recommendation, it's harder to get these scientists to speak out in public since they all depend on NIH funding to do their research. Thus, the government continues to fool itself into thinking it has scientific support when the plain fact is that consensus disappeared long ago and a general debate continues on the question. What ABC-TV has done is to point out that the government may be fooling itself, but it has long since stopped fooling the American people. It may be time Congress took a closer look at the use of ‘junk science’ at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute."