Public Policy That Makes Test Subjects of Us All
8th April 2009
John Tierney picks a side in the War on Salt in New York.
That antifat campaign, like the antisalt campaign, was endorsed by prominent groups and federal agencies before the campaigners’ theory was tested in rigorous trials. It too seemed quite logical — in theory.
But in practice the results were dismal, as demonstrated eventually by clinical trials and by the expanding waistlines of Americans. People followed the advice in the “food pyramid” to reduce the percentage of fat in the diet, but they got more obese, perhaps because they ate so many other ingredients in foods with “low fat” labels.
You might think that experience would inspire caution among public health officials, but instead they seem to be gaining confidence. When Dr. Frieden and Mr. Bloomberg decided several years ago that trans fats were dangerous, they didn’t simply issue a warning or a set of voluntary guidelines. They insisted on outlawing trans fats in New York’s restaurants.