Empire State Today

Bans on certain food and drinks advocated by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be based on scientific data, not the tendency of consumers to overindulge, said the CEO of the nonprofit group Center for Truth in Science.

“Unless there is significant and settled science – a causal relationship between a product and significant health detriments, it’s hard to justify a ban,” Joe Annotti told Empire State Today. “There are lots of things in grocery stores that if you eat or drink too much of them are going to be harmful.”

Consumers can find plenty of information on labels, in the media and on the internet to make their own decisions and what to eat and drink, Annotti said. 

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“Placing broad-based bans on things because they might be bad for you or because a limited scientific study or a fragment of scientific evidence shows some potential correlation, is just not good public policy,” he said. 

In 2013, a New York state judge struck down a state law pushed by Bloomberg that banned restaurants from selling sodas and other sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces, Reuters reported. An appeals court later upheld the judge’s ruling.

Bloomberg currently is exporting his campaign to other countries, including Brazil, Jamaica, Barbados, Colombia, Mexico and South Africa.

The Bloomberg Philanthropies Food Policy Program is spending $435 million on a campaign to push policies promoting healthier diets, according to its website. The program encourages higher taxes on sodas and junk food, limiting food and beverage marketing to children and adolescents and new labeling requirements, the website said.

In Mexico, two state governments have recently banned the sale of junk food and sugary drinks to minors, NPR reported, and other states are considering similar restrictions. Two-thirds of Mexicans who have died from COVID-19 had underlying health conditions such as obesity and diabetes, NPR reports. Undersecretary of Health Hugo López-Gatell has attempted to blame the consumption of soft drinks on the county's COVID-19 deaths, USA Today reports, tying sugar consumption to obesity.

“I know from my own experience that I was more prone to drink a sugary soda when I was younger than I am today,” Annoti said. “But creating a system where the government tells you what can and can’t eat and can and can’t drink, I just think that’s a dangerous precedent.”

A child may decide to use his allowance money to buy a candy bar instead of an apple, Annoti said, adding, “To me, that’s not a decision where the government has to intervene.” 

Regulation should be fair and reasonable, the CEO said.

“If you provide people with the information they need on the health impacts of food whether they be positive or negative, they are responsible enough to make their own decisions,” he said. “They are responsible enough to spend their own money- and it is their money - in ways they want to.”