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Public Policy That Makes Test Subjects of Us All
New York Times ^ | April 6, 2009 | John Tierney

Posted on 04/06/2009 6:03:41 PM PDT by reaganaut1

Suppose you wanted to test the effects of halving the amount of salt in people’s diets. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants.

You might, for instance, take note of a recent clinical trial in which heart patients put on a restricted-sodium diet fared worse than those on a normal diet. In light of new research suggesting that eating salt improves mood and combats depression, you might be alert for psychological effects of the new diet. You might worry that people would react to less-salty food by eating more of it, a trend you could monitor by comparing them with a control group.

But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply announce, as Michael Bloomberg did, that the city is starting a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry and restaurant chains to cut salt intake by half over the next decade. Why bother with consent forms when you can automatically enroll everyone in the experiment?

And why bother with a control group when you already know the experiment’s outcome? The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.”

But that prediction is based on an estimate based on extrapolations based on assumptions that have yet to be demonstrated despite a half-century of efforts. No one knows how people would react to less-salty food, much less what would happen to their health.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: New York
KEYWORDS: bloomberg; diet; food; nannystate; nyc; salt; sodium; tierney
Tierney explains well that the science behind restricting salt is inconclusive. There is also the principled argument that adults should responsible for their own health and their dietary choices, not the government.
1 posted on 04/06/2009 6:03:42 PM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ... I’ve read that blacks in particular should restrict their salt intake because it appears to cause high blood pressure. I wonder ... is this another way to do away with more blacks? Abortion is pushed and more blacks have abortions that other races. One can only wonder ... .


2 posted on 04/06/2009 6:08:48 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: nmh

Huh? I think Bloomberg is a busybody, but he is not genocidal.
If blacks should restrict salt intake, a government effort to reduce salt in food could in theory benefit them. I’d still oppose it because I don’t want the government to boss people more than it already does.


3 posted on 04/06/2009 6:12:58 PM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

Huh? I think Bloomberg is a busybody, but he is not genocidal.

If blacks should restrict salt intake, a government effort to reduce salt in food could in theory benefit them. I’d still oppose it because I don’t want the government to boss people more than it already does.

How come Bloomburg supports abortion?
How come Bloomburg adovcates no restriction on abortion?

I agree that I don’t want the government putting restrictions on my diet.


4 posted on 04/06/2009 6:18:36 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: reaganaut1

Government is responsible for armed forces, police, fire departments and courts. Social engineering is not proper target of governments, fed, state local.

Oh where is the wilderness? Every day there is somehting else these expensive clowns are imposing on us.


5 posted on 04/06/2009 6:27:46 PM PDT by Bhoy (TEA PARTY ON)
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To: nmh

>I agree that I don’t want the government putting restrictions on my diet.

Gov: Carnivorous diets are hereby banned; Veganism is the only State recognized diet!

(Yes, then people could have protein and several vitamin decencies easier!)


6 posted on 04/06/2009 6:29:24 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: OneWingedShark

LOL!

I know better than to be a vegetarian!


7 posted on 04/06/2009 6:30:20 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: reaganaut1
Good article.

Nanny Bloomberg strikes again.

8 posted on 04/06/2009 6:33:32 PM PDT by browardchad
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To: reaganaut1

This isn’t so much about salt as about government taking far more power than it should. What about the liberty to make choices for ourselves? What sorry excuse for an adult would turn their life over to bureaucrats to rule???

The funny thing is, many of the same folks who take extreme offense at suggestions of sexual morality (how DARE you tell me what to do!!!) have no problem letting the bureaucrats tell them what to eat and drink. Abortion, promiscuity, homosexuality? Don’t anyone DARE tell them it’s wrong. Smoking, eating salt, trans fat? Gotta stomp that out ASAP!

And people fear Christians? The moralists on the left will enslave us all!


9 posted on 04/06/2009 6:34:09 PM PDT by CitizenUSA
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To: reaganaut1

Pretty soon you will have chefs smuggling Morton’s salt in their pockets.

The quote from CS Lewis is appropriate.....

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”


10 posted on 04/06/2009 6:40:14 PM PDT by Grammy
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To: reaganaut1

Ping


11 posted on 04/06/2009 7:06:26 PM PDT by dannyboy72a (The President of the United States should not be selling me insurance)
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To: nmh

Huh? Cutting salt intake would be expected to improve the health and longevity of black people.


12 posted on 04/06/2009 7:16:36 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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