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Doctors will this week declare war on America's soft drinks industry by calling for a 'fat tax' to combat the nation's obesity epidemic. Delegates at the powerful American Medical Association's annual conference will demand a levy on the sweeteners put in sugary drinks to pay for a massive public health education campaign. They will also call for the amount of salt added to burgers and processed foods to be halved. The moves come as U.S. doctors - like their British counterparts - are becoming increasingly alarmed at the growing number of deaths linked to obesity. The resolution will put doctors...

NEW YORK, Feb. 20 — As more and more children grow obese eating fatty foods saturated with sugar, consumer advocates battling to curb marketing by food companies are threatening to use their big guns: lawsuits and bad press. And it appears to be working. Although no lawsuits have been filed, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is talking with Kellogg and representatives for soft drink companies -- including Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. -- about the way they sell products to children, CSPI lawyer Stephen Gardner said. ''Unfortunately, many food companies maximize their profits by pitching junk...

A consumer group is demanding that Frito-Lay put warning labels on chips with the fat substitute olestra or face a lawsuit by a Massachusetts woman who says she got stomach cramps and had to use the bathroom quickly after eating the snacks. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said Wednesday that 30-year-old Lori Perlow of Braintree, Mass., would sue Frito-Lay under a consumer-friendly deceptive-advertising law in the Bay State. Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo Inc., said warning labels are not needed for its Light lines of potato and corn chips. "It's an extremely safe product, well-tested," said Frito-Lay...

Coffee's vindicators tout a message no one wants to hear This week brought news that coffee, long accused of causing cancer, actually helps prevent it. Reports that America's favorite beverage is chock-full of antioxidants came across exactly as one would expect—in the form of a gentle scolding. That a cup of joe carries ten times more antioxidants than a banana "does not mean coffee is a substitute for fruit and vegetables," warns Associated Press. "Americans are not eating enough fruits and vegetables, the sources of antioxidants...doctors recommend," Reuters cautions us 50 words in. Following a study by Joe A. Vinson...

Ask Michael Jacobson how he feels when critics call the Center for Science in the Public Interest the "food police" and he answers with the bravado that has made CSPI one of the most reviled enemies of big food companies. "Depends on who says it," said Jacobson, CSPI's executive director and co-founder. "People who say it with humor, I think 'fine.' Other people mean it in a derogatory way, and I think nasty thoughts about those people. "I see it in a way as food detectives, where we try to find out what's going on and we tell the public...

WHEN it comes to food fights, John Belushi's character in "Animal House" has nothing on Rick Berman. A prominent Washington lobbyist, Mr. Berman runs the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit advocacy group that is financed by the food and restaurant industries. Two months ago, after a report in a leading medical journal cast doubt on several assumptions about obesity, he pounced. His group ran $600,000 worth of full-page ads in a half-dozen newspapers, gloating that the study showed that obesity was not an "epidemic" but rather a lot of hype. "Americans have been force-fed a steady diet of obesity...

Bud Light Accused of Trivializing Alcoholism in New Ad Watchdog Groups Say Beer Ad Depicts Lying About Drinking WASHINGTON—-A new ad for Bud Light beer depicts men joking about lies they've told to cover up their daytime drinking, and two watchdog groups say the Federal Trade Commission should crack down and ask Anheuser-Busch to pull the ad. In a letter to FTC enforcement official Janet Evans, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) say the ad irresponsibly makes light of alcoholic behavior. The ad in question features a...

Not content knowing that some people continue to occasionally enjoy a meal, the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) launched their latest attack yesterday -- this time on salt. So CSPI has reaffirmed salt's place on its long list of nutritional no-nos, which includes milk, salad, and seafood. If you listen to CSPI -- why you would, we don't know -- that shaker on your dinner table might as well contain rat poison or cyanide. But considering the mixed scientific evidence, as well as CSPI's draconian solutions, you should take their latest attack...

It’s common for the major TV networks to run news stories that rewrite those that appeared in that day’s New York Times. It’s rarer to see a major news show resort to running press releases for advocacy organizations. Friday, ABC’s World News Tonight managed to do both.

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A consumer group sued the federal government on Thursday, saying that salt is killing tens of thousands of Americans and that regulators have done too little to control salt in food. Despite advisories to take it easy on sodium, Americans are now consuming about 4,000 milligrams a day -- nearly double the recommended limit to keep blood pressure under control, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said. So the CSPI renewed a lawsuit first filed in 1983 to ask federal courts to force the Food and Drug Administration to declare sodium a food...

Just in time for your New Year's resolutions, the obesity scaremongers at the Harvard School of Public Health cooked up another statistical stew that's just as hard to swallow as their previous broadsides. In a widely publicized study published last week by The New England Journal of Medicine, they purport to prove that physical activity does not negate the supposedly adverse health effects of obesity. Of this study's many flaws, one stands out: its measurement of physical exercise accounted for only the following activities: running, jogging, walking (outside, but not on a treadmill), biking, swimming laps (but not swimming in...

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has issued its list of "50 things to eat before you die" -- and with it, a rebuke of nutrition scolds and animal rights activists bent on controlling our food choices. While we can't vouch for everything on the viewer-voted list (kangaroo and Moreton Bay bugs come to mind), consumers have a right to eat what they please. Unfortunately, people like the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the bleating animal-rights activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) want to take away almost every...

Food cops who think your weight is their business are bent on slimming Americans down by any means necessary. That includes happily ignoring such commonplaces as evidence, logic, and common sense. Reaching deep into their toolbox to hammer companies that advertise food to children, they're now invoking the "precautionary principle" -- a bizarre theory that insists everything should be banned until it's proved absolutely safe. Susan Linn, two-time speaker at the obesity-lawsuit-pushing Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) and dedicated opponent of all forms of advertising, recently told Obesity Policy Report: "I think that we need to take a leaf from...

Yesterday was declared "National No Soda Day" by an activist organization called the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) -- presently unaffiliated with the American Medical Association. The group argued that people should cut soda "out of their diets," and urged medical students around the nation to drop their cans and preach to the rest of us. The only problem for AMSA: its anti-soda statements, and the research that supposedly backs them up, are nothing more than fizz. In a "frequently asked questions" section of AMSA's website, the group notes that soda is just the first step in its anti-food-choice crusade....

"This may be the most important letter I've ever written," declares People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) president Ingrid Newkirk in a September 27 fundraising letter. "I can honestly say that, in the almost 25 years that PETA has been in existence, I've never -- never, ever! - witnessed a more organized, well-funded, multi-industry attack on animal rights and PETA than the one we're under right now. It is getting stronger every day ? We are number one on their hit list, and they are out for PETA's blood." For once, we agree with Newkirk. And we're thrilled...

"Certainly it's a marketing ploy. This is about marketing. It's not really about nutrition." That's what food cop Marion Nestle told NBC Nightly News last week, after General Mills announced that it would begin making all of its cereals from 100 percent whole grains. Nestle's histrionics fly in the face of some of the most ardent diet scolds -- including herself. Only a year ago, she told Newsday: "It's always better to have whole grains." It would seem that Nestle has never seen a nutrition improvement by a business that she liked. And it's becoming increasingly clear that she uses...

Washington, DC -- Attention parents and teachers! The food police have added whole and two-percent milk to the list of "poor nutritional quality" beverages in their crosshairs, recommending that they be removed from American's schools. This and other ridiculous assertions are contained in a report being circulated by the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The draft report, rumored to be released this month, bears the name of CSPI's activist coalition, the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity (NANA). NANA is part of an anti-soda crusade which advocates taxing sodas and restricting their...

Ronald Bailey'sColumns Caveat Emptor (3/24) The Health Care They Want to Give You Is A Right (7/7) The Best BioDefense is BioOffense (3/10) Earlier Columns July 14, 2004 Caveat Emptor The best science money can buy Ronald Bailey "Follow the money" is always a good rule when evaluating claims. If someone has a financial interest in something, there's always the possibility that their judgment might be somewhat biased. Following this maxim, the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) held its second Integrity in Science Conference earlier this week. It was dedicated to examining "corporate and...

This morning's New York Times features a widely respected university professor and obesity researcher (in fact, the man who discovered the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin) decrying the distorted perception that Americans' waistlines are exploding. Dr. Jeffrey Friedman sharply criticized debates surrounding the national girth as "so political, so rife with misinformation and disinformation." In an effort to fight this particular obesity myth, Friedman points to a CDC study of the changes in American's body weights from 1991 to today, which shows that it's obesity hype -- and not the average American -- that's startlingly bloated. The Times reports that the CDC...

In response to the FDA's consideration of cigarette-style warning labels on "foods deemed unhealthy by government scientists," this week's special obesity-hype issue of TIME magazine prominently features a full-page "Common Sense Obesity Warning" from the Center for Consumer Freedom. A consortium of obesity hysterics and food cops descended on Williamsburg, Virginia this week at the "TIME/ABC News Summit on Obesity." As the event ground to a merciful halt today, TIME science editor Philip Elmer-Dewitt let the magazine's agenda be known: "We're going to keep [food] companies' feet to the fire, and this is not the last you're going to hear...