War on Food Choice

Ex-Congressman Bob Barr continues to transform me (see here, here, and here) from foe to fan with some excellent commentary in today's Washington Times concerning the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) war on our food choices. In the piece Barr points out that "CSPI does not conduct actual scientific research. Instead, it is a public policy advocacy group. The organization wants the public to assume it does research, when what it really does is troll through thousands of scientific journals to pinpoint research that supports its pre-existing political agenda."

I wonder, though, if Bob Barr realizes that the current impulse for more government control of the food supply is in fact a mere extension of the war on people who use certain kinds of drugs? The arguments for restricting food choices are philosophically exactly the same as those for restricting drug choices. It is worth mentioning that after the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act one of the first things the Bureau of Chemistry head, Harvey Wiley, did was to unilaterally prohibit coca as a food additive. The result, a myriad of harmless products were denied to the people that had enjoyed them.