“I don’t want any more government interference than the next guy, but I believe that the precedent has already been set for successful government intervention on behalf of improving our health,” writes Hanover College Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology Professor Bryant Stamford in the first of a two-part article comparing obesity prevention tactics to federal curbs on tobacco advertising. Acknowledging the public outcry against fast-food incentive bans, Stamford suggests that the government would not set “a dangerous precedent” insofar as it has already made a concerted effort to stymie youth tobacco use with product warnings and advertisement restrictions. Without these measures, he claims, “the cigarette industry would continue to run roughshod over the American public with the specific purpose of capturing us when we are young, addicting us and ensuring that the majority of the addicted will be customers for life.” For Stamford, the parallels between the tobacco and fast food…
Tag Archives tobacco
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a draft strategic priorities document for fiscal years 2011-2015 that outlines four key cost-cutting strategic priorities and four strategic program goals designed to help FDA achieve its public health mission. According to an October 1, 2010, Federal Register notice, the four cost-cutting priorities seek to (i) “advance regulatory science and innovation,” (ii) strengthen the safety and integrity of the global supply chain,” (iii) “strengthen compliance and enforcement activities,” and (iv) “expand efforts to meet the needs of special populations.” Among the program goals, FDA has highlighted intentions to establish effective tobacco regulation as well as advance food safety and nutrition by ensuring the safety of the food supply from farm to table and promoting healthy dietary practices and nutrition. FDA will accept comments until November 1, 2010.
Recently published articles co-authored by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity Director Kelly Brownell explore various aspects of addressing obesity. They include: Kelly Brownell & Kenneth Warner, “The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar is Big Food?,” The Milbank Quarterly, 2009. This article discusses the “Frank Statement” that cigarette manufacturers published in the 1950s assuring smokers that the industry “always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public’s health.” The authors call this “a charade, the first step in a concerted, half-century-long campaign to mislead Americans about the catastrophic effects of smoking and to avoid public policy that might damage sales.” They examine the food industry to find purported parallels. They claim that food companies appear to have a similar strategy, focusing on “personal responsibility as the cause of the nation’s unhealthy diet”; raising “fears that…
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