From: http://arclightzero.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/know-the-enemy-dr-thomas-frieden-and-cspi/
Know The Enemy: Dr. Thomas Frieden and CSPI
Activism. Is there any other word out there that strikes such fear into the hearts of reasonable people everywhere? Sure, fine, there can be good activism, but how often do you hear about that as opposed to activism that is generally aimed at screwing you over? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But even in the sordid world of activism, there are people and organizations that stand out above the rest as being absolutely reprehensible; and Dr. Frieden and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CPSI) are right up there at the top.
Those poor souls who live in New York should already know this man, but let me fill the rest of you in on just who the good doctor actually is.
Dr. Frieden is the “health czar” of New York (aka the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene for New York City), and has been since 2002. While this may sound like a relatively benign position that would ordinarily be charged with monitoring flu vaccines and licensing restaurants; Frieden has turned his office into the mecca of “health” activism. But just what does that mean? It means that Dr. Frieden is in the business of telling people that they are too dumb to manage their own lives – so he is going to do it for them.
You see, Dr. Frieden has not only orchestrated the New York smoking ban, but also the trans fat ban (ignoring all of the science out there in lieu of his own opinions), a government “monitoring” program of diabetics (so they can scold diabetics who don’t take proper care of themselves), mandatory calorie listings on restaurant menus (see it on this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes)… And more disturbingly he spent $2 million on city money to tackle breast feeding (women in New York should breast feed for at least 6 months) and distributes custom “New York” condoms (city approved!). His rationale? As he put it, “when anyone dies at an early age from a preventable cause in New York City, it’s my fault.” Interestingly, his definition of “preventable cause” is anything that he disapproves of (including “insufficient” breast feeding).
All of this personal activism and all with a city budget of $1.6 Billion. That scares me to no end. When an activist like Frieden has not only power and money, but also feels that he is justified in his actions, it is an equation for trouble. As one woman challenged during a public forum with Dr. Frieden:
“Your approach to public health shows contempt for the public, contempt for the marketplace, contempt for the principles of autonomy and choice. Our bodies aren’t yet the property of the state, nor yet the city.”
But Tom Frieden isn’t just content micromanaging the citizens of New York. He is also a public cheerleader for CSPI, which is the notorious “food police” activist organization that has condemned soft drinks, fat substitutes, irradiated meat, biotech food crops, French fries, and just about anything that tastes good.
However, CSPI doesn’t just go around condemning food and drink, but also goes so far as to threaten restaurants with lawsuits over supposedly mislabeling of “low fat” items, nutrition and calorie labeling (they work with Frieden with this one) and just about anything else they can leverage to get their way. Apparently, “they see legal action as leverage to enact all the restrictions on food they have long supported.” Yikes!
Some of the things they push for through relentless letters, petitions, press releases and public scare tactics are:
- extra taxes on foods with fat, sugar, and sodium (the so-called “Twinkie tax”);
- government-mandated “warning” labels on high-fat, high-calorie menu items;
- mandatory nutrition information on restaurant menus, menu-boards, meat packages, hamburger wrappers, food commercials, ice cream stores, movie theatres, bakeries, hot dog stands, etc., etc.
- requirements that broadcasters give free “equal time” to government-supported advertisements of “healthy” foods;
- restrictions on baby food packaging requiring that tapioca be labeled as “chemically modified food starch”;
- labels warning parents that soft drinks may be replacing low-fat milk, fruit juice, and other drinks in their children’s diets;
- labels warning of contamination from fresh, unpasteurized juices;
- stricter regulations on genetically enhanced foods, which are already the most regulated food products in the U.S.
But much like Dr. Frieden (and perhaps why he cheerleads for them) is that CSPI believes in forcing their personal opinion on the general public. They fight against sodium, caffeine, meat, dairy, [any] drinking of alcohol and wine… In fact, they hate alcohol so much that they advocate for severe tax increases on beer, increased restrictions on marketing, poster-sized warning in restaurants and they even oppose winemakers promoting the health benefits of wine, accusing them of “hawking America’s costliest and most devastating drug.”
But don’t go thinking that CSPI just wants you to eat better. They really don’t want you eating anything more that you should (and it better be healthy!). Jacobson claims that we should limit our consumption to just-above-starvation levels because “with animals, hundreds of studies show that if you give them 80 to 60 percent of their normal calories, they live much longer.”
In the end though, their opinion is that food will kill you. For instance, on Good Morning America, Jacobson promoted CSPI’s report condemning ice cream and warned “Just know that you’re going to kill yourself.” Even fruits and veggies are bad news, as they say “naturally, you should eat lots of them, because they’re good for you. Just keep in mind that they may be killing you,” (referring to pesticide use).
And while CSPI may sound like some whacked-out fringe organization, the scary truth of the mater is that they are mainstream enough to work with Dr. Frieden on the menu labeling fiasco in New York City (and now elsewhere) and they claim to have over 900,000 subscribers to its “Nutrition Action Newsletter” which other nutrition sources claim “falls outside the realm of generally accepted nutrition guidelines and recommendations.”
They also bring in $17 million in yearly revenue from various funding sources and has a lawsuit docket that includes a frivolous lawsuit against Burger King claiming that they are putting their customers at a higher risk of heart disease by using oils with trans fats (“partially-hydrogenated oil, the deadly trans-fat-laden ingredient”).
Oh yeah, and Jacobson pulled in $276,434 in compensation from CSPI to wage his personal jihad against food.
So this is the state of things when it comes to the nanny state. Once the nanny state takes hold, the downward slope is slippery and bottomless… You can thank Dr. Frieden and CSPI for helping to oil that slope… And you can bet that oil is trans fat free.
Then Add This:
New Democrat Coalition, New York City Officials Announce Proposal for Federal Health Care IT Program
The coalition seeks to nationalize interoperable health care IT and have 75% of providers use the technology by 2018. According to the coalition, the proposal involves three areas for implementation: infrastructure, which would include codification of the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology; standards; and finances. The proposal would require the first report to Congress of standards for public programs — such as Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP — by Jan. 1, 2010. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), a coalition member, said that the proposal also would include privacy standards to address concerns about confidentiality often linked with the use of health care IT.
U.S. Campaign To Promote Circumcision Would Be ‘Premature,’ Time is Right for Dialogue on Issue, Letter to Editor Says
AND THEN THIS:
NOW from CPSI:
http://www.cspinet.org/CSPI_35thAR.pdf
EATING GREEN
CSPI advocates for better diets and sustainable agriculture, because a diet that is most healthful for consumers often is most protective of the environment, too. In 1990, CSPI led the effort to win passage of a law that set the first federal definition of “organic” foods.
CSPI’s newest project, plant-based diet to improve health, protect the environment, and improve animal welfare. Such a diet would prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks, cancer deaths, and food poisonings annually and would greatly reduce the need for pesticides, fertilizer, water, and the vast acres of land needed to grow corn and other crops to feed livestock. Beyond educating consumers, the policies that would encourage people to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and less fatty animal products.
The long-term benefits of – from improving human health to ameliorating the misery of animals raised on factory farms, from preserving huge amounts of land to safeguarding our water supply. CSPI summarized those benefits in a recent book,
The following foundations have generously helped to make
CSPI’s work possible.
(Single grants of $5,000 or more since 2000)
CSPI FOUNDATION FUNDING, 2000-2005
Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation, Inc.
Agua Fund of the Tides Foundation
Allen Foundation, Inc.
The Amaturo Family Foundation, Inc.
The Argosy Foundation
Arkay Foundation
Barkley Fund of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation
Bauman Family Foundation, Inc.
Beldon Fund
Carmel Hill Fund
Center for Animal Health and Food Safety
Center for Health, Communications and the Environment
The Cheeryble Foundation
Claneil Foundation, Inc.
Compton Foundation, Inc.
The Nathan Cummings Foundation
Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research
Foundation
The Educational Foundation of America
Everett Public Service Internship
Program
The Freed Foundation
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
Gegax Family Foundation
The Grable Foundation
Grodzins Fund
The Joseph and Sally Handleman
Foundation Trust
The Heinz Endowments<<<Theresa Kerry/John Kerry
Jewish Healthcare Foundation
The Joyce Foundation<<<<Obama’s foundation in Chicago
King Baudouin Foundation
Kurz Family Foundation
The Marisla Foundation
The John Merck Fund
The New York Community Trust
NTI’s Global Health and Security Initiative
Park Foundation, Inc.
Pettus Crowe Foundation, Inc.
Philancon Fund of the Boston Foundation
The Philanthropic Initiative
Polk Family Charitable Trust
The Myra Reinhard Family Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Rockefeller Family Fund<<<<
The Rockefeller Foundation<<<<<
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc.<<<<<<<
Helena Rubinstein Foundation
Joseph Rosen Foundation
Saperstein Family Fund
The Shared Earth Foundation
Christopher D. Smithers Foundation
The Streisand Foundation<<<<<<
Szekely Family Foundation
The Irving and Edyth S. Usen Family Charitable Foundation
Wallace Genetic Foundation, Inc.
Then “Pal” Friedman up with Sustein (Obama’s Regulatory CZAR):
[snip from Op-Ed piece]
Nudging Us to Better Food Choices?
By: David Martosko
Newspaper: Richmond Times-Dispatch
OUR NEW OIRA administrator knows this all too well. Sunstein has been an active participant in the politicization of food as a proponent of animal rights.
As recently as 2007, Sunstein publicly argued in favor of a legal ban on hunting, and for the elimination of meat-eating. In 2004, he co-authored a book on the animal liberation philosophy which sets out an ambitious plan to give animals the legal “right” to file lawsuits. But a 2002 working paper Sunstein wrote at the University of Chicago contains the biggest red flag about what may lie ahead. “There should be,” Sunstein wrote, “extensive regulation of the use of animals.”
What kind of regulations could our newest czar have in mind? A cheeseburger tax? A steakhouse zoning ordinance? A vegetarian overhaul of the National School Lunch Program like the one proposed by the Norfolk-based PETA? (No matter what the vegan crowd claims, after all, milk still does a body good.)
On Sunstein’s first official week at the helm of OIRA, it’s impossible to know exactly what’s coming down the pike. But as he takes up what has been aptly described in The New Republic as “the most important position that Americans know nothing about,” we would be wise to start paying greater attention.
No matter how you slice it, giving government permission to nudge our dietary choices is a risky business. Especially when emotional philosophy drowns out sound science.
Professor Sunstein can eat all the tofu salads and veggie burgers he wants. He should always have that choice. But let’s hope he doesn’t plan on using his new position to nudge the rest of us away from a slice of Virginia ham — or whatever else he might decide is bad for our health.
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/oped_detail.cfm/oped/633
End note:
So there you have it America……Nanny, “in your face” activism that will regulate what you eat, how much you eat and regulate even your intake of Salt……
