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Salt Is A Class I Drug
From The Daily Capitalist
The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products. ...
A recent study by researchers at Columbia and Stanford universities and the University of California at San Francisco found that cutting salt intake by 3 grams a day could prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks, strokes and cases of heart disease. ...
"We can't just rely on the individual to do something," said Cheryl Anderson, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who served on the Institute of Medicine committee. "Food manufacturers have to reduce the amount of sodium in foods."
This will get wings because, friends, you are paying for my health care. As health care costs rise because of government regulation and control, there will be pressure to cut costs as the bill for Obamacare spirals out of control. The justification will sound very reasonable. "All we need to do is cut salt intake by 3 measly grams a day, and we would save so much money because people wouldn't have salt related disease." That sounds OK. But ...
... then you need a regulatory apparatus to monitor this reasonable rule. A Salt Intake Control Evaluation Board (SICEM) would be set up to regulate food salt content. Since people really like salt, they would buy more salt at Safeway and use it to flavor things the way they want it.
As the futility of SICEM is apparent, we would have the Salt Control and Rationing Board (SCARB) to regulate individual salt intake. You would need a doctor's prescription to buy salt and, if your blood pressure was too high, well, you would be a parasite on the rest of us because you would be driving up our medical costs due to your anti-social behavior.
Unscrupulous types would then create a black market to meet the growing demand for illegal salt. This would be a huge opportunity for drug traffickers and, after bloody turf wars to control the market, a few cartels would arise. Of course you would have some shady doctors whom you could pay to get a prescription. The fraud would be enormous.
A special regulatory police would be required to audit and control this illicit trade. This Health Enforcement Legislation Police (HELP) would have officers dressed in white lab coats highly trained in salt related health matters. They would have broad authority to audit the health records of suspected salt abusers. A Special Branch would hunt out traffickers. These highly trained officers, known affectionately as the "Salty Dogs," would require greater and greater authority as the salt trade gets out of hand. Raids would be made randomly on households looking for private salt stashes. Tearful moms would be hauled off to salt health re-education camps (SHRECs).
Pretty soon the government would be forced to step in and nationalize salt production to control the market. In order to discourage consumption, they would completely control salt production and distribution, subject to the aforementioned rules. A Salt Czar would set production quotas and prices. This would hugely help the illegal salt cartels, because the government makes it a controlled substance. Lobbyists would seek emergency relief for their clients who needed salt in their businesses. Friends of the Czar would get rich.
This is what Friedrich von Hayek called "The Road to Serfdom."
Don't even think about a Double Quarter Pounder® with cheese. We can't afford it.
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Has anyone considered what the reduction in iodine will be on the population? Iodized salt was developed to prevent iodine deficiency. Iodine is important in promoting the development and release of thyroid hormones, which are essential in driving many mental and bodily processes. A shortage of iodine in the diet can result in mental impairment, hypothyroidism, goiters, and pregnancy complications. Iodine deficiency can affect anyone, though it is especially prevalent in geographic areas where available food resources lack necessary amounts of the element. In World War I many inductees from the Midwest were declared unfit because of iodine deficiency.
Deficiencies are common in areas where iodine is not abundant in soil and food. Seafood and crops grown in nutrient-rich soil are typically the best sources for iodine, and people who live far from coastal regions and at high altitudes may not have access to such foods. In many places, iodine deficiency has been averted by fortifying cropland with the element and adding iodized salts to foods. The condition still exists in some regions of the world, however, and individuals from any location can experience iodine deficiency because of personal dietary choices. So has this whole plan been considered by the Surgeon General?
Having lived my entire life under the care of a nationalised health care system (UK) I can readily see both sides of the health care issue in that;
1. My grandfather suffered from fusing of the spine leaving him crippled and in pain for the last 20 years of his life when an operation costing less than $1000 in 1937 could perhaps have cured him, and on the other hand;
2. I have queued for hours waiting on medical staff who are convinced they are doing me a favour in treating me.
If you want freedom, it costs. Once the state picks up the tab it also takes upon itself the right to tell youi how to live,
Ghandi would be pissed.
It's funny that we don't have all the problems with the delivery of food that we have with the delivery of health care services. Aside from sanitation rules applied to food, there is little regulation and yet there is an abundance of it at cheap prices. And I would argue that food is more important to human existence than health care.
Even though the quality of health care in the U.S. is better than most other countries, the delivery and cost of such services is a mess. For those of you who believe that we need the government to control health care services because it is so inefficient, I would say that almost all of the problems you point out are because of government interference with the delivery of health care. Far from being unregulated it has been gimmicked since the creation of Medicare, the creation of tax deductions for employer provided insurance, the tax incentives given to HMOs, and the fact that states prohibit insurance companies from competing with each other across state borders. And there's much more.
I would argue that a free market in health care would be able to deliver the best care to the most people at the cheapest cost. Just like food.
Give that man a prize.
Yup, and government interference into sodium content in packaged food will cause more deaths, not less. Salt is not just a spice, it's a preservative with antibacterial properties. By lowering the salt content, they will guarantee a less safe food supply.
File this action under "unintended consequences" with 95% of the rest of government interference.
Bingo! Please pass go and collect $200. For reference, please see the market for Lasik eye surgery, cosmetic surgery, and other elective, non-insured surgeries.
Obama will eventually convince all Americans that they are too stupid to make decisions for themselves and that had better just shut up and send all their money to Goldman Sachs and to the the IRS.
It's the high fructose corn syrup that oughta be studied and regulated in the processed foods, unless it's a population of fat-assed diabetics you are after.
Lets get a grip folks... Obamacare, socialists... was I re-routed to Palin's Facebook page?
Big business has been slowly killing you and your loved ones for decades in the name of "convenience" (read profit). Please do a little research before you go off on your anti government rants.
Sodium levels in processed foods (anything in a package... even frozen meats), and all fast foods, have turned the North American diet into one of the unhealthiest in the world. Reducing those levels through legislation is a long overdue action and, who knows, with any luck your children's life expectancy me catch up with the rest of the developed world... don't worry though, you still have the "freedom" to open that "low sodium" package and pour as much salt as you like on it... you will not be forced to stop killing yourselves, and your loved-ones... "Let freedom reign!"
You make no sense. It's the nefarious packaged food producers that have a secret plot to kill us by feeding us massive quantities of sodium, and government is the solution? Yet all the while you admit that you still have the freedom to put as much salt as you want on your food.
So why bother regulating? I know the answer - it's a step toward regulating the person, not the food. This is precisely why leftists can't be trusted with taking a small bite of the apple - you want the orchard.
Did you just wake up with a serious case of projection, or did you always have it? Your spurious comments like: "get a grip" ... "big business has been slowly killing you" ... "long overdue action" ... "catch up with the rest of the developed world", etc. are just silly. Furthermore, in fact many of us have done "a little research" and actually applied common sense; and, no, legislating the level of salt to be included in food will likely not change my child's life expectancy, but it will increase government involement in an area of life I do not wish it to be involved, and that will assuredly limit freedom. Grow up, the government kills more people than too much salt.
You have the freedom to choose to increase (significantly... try asking your doctor) the odds of heart disease in your children (same for gun laws, and fear of universal health care)... now that's what I call "just silly."
"legislating the level of salt to be included in food will likely not change my child's life expectancy"... is way beyond silly... it's just plain sad.
Clearly for you truth is silly and sad.
Before I lay down any comments on this thread, let me first point out that I am not an American and as such am not too well versed with the nuances of the healthcare debate that seems to have pretty much polarized opinion across the stratum in the states.
Basically the crux is an affordable healthcare system for each and everyone. Thats the insanely priced healthcare curve should have never seen the light of the day in USA.
I don't know how to quite put down this, but I think the entire healthcare sector has been corporatised to that extent where they see benefit for themselves only out of a high priced cost curves, thats they dont have any incentive to offer cheaper alternatives to the public at large.
Insurance companies - they will always push for higher premiums
Hospitals - will always push for higher costs due to insane medical tort expenses involved
Perhaps the litigious culture....where you can get sued for anything is a big factor....most tort cases in my viewpoint are totally out of place...perhaps you can sue in case of gross negligence like leaving a medical instrument inside a patient post an operation and all....
secondly, I am still surprised at why medicines are so expensive there...generics should be used in US....that would definitely bring down the cost atleast on the drugs side.....
Perhaps you can have a medical insurance for the serious problems...heart operations, serious diseases and all...and for normal problems like fever and all, you could have a price cap on the routine checkups depending on the ability of the guy to pay up...for those who can afford to pay, they would pay the normal costs....I know price control does not work as an ideal solution...perhaps you could have a system of general practitioners not affiliated to corporate hospitals who can take care of this side of things...the volume of clients that they would deal with might make up for the expenses...
I know this is a rather generic ramble...the point is the US healthcare systems is trapped in a high cost bubble...and no insurance system reform that deals with the real issues like expensive medicines, unneeded medical tests, tort insurance will actually bring the costs down.
Good preface to your comment. You've been sold a line of BS in some areas. Don't feel bad, it's the line of BS that a lot of people want you to buy.
1) US drug costs are enormous because US drug companies do most of the development of new drugs, but nearly all countries other than the US impose price controls on drugs while requiring that they be sold or else patent protection will be broken. As a result, those drug companies look solely to the US market to recover all of their R&D costs. The US is a sucker; we should tell all other developed countries to pony up their fair share, or we'll wipe out their patents in retaliation and maybe even take it a step further.
2) Tort litigation contributes to costs in the US but the size of this effect is massively overblown by business interests with an anti-liability agenda. A complete elimination of the tort system and all liability would only reduce costs a few percent at most.
So, where do our absurd costs come from? Three things:
a) an aging, sicker population;
b) newer, more expensive treatments and the assumption of entitlement to any treatment no matter how expensive;
c) OVERHEAD COSTS. Absolutely absurd amounts of clerical and management overhead, most of it fighting over what percentage discount each payor will get. This is our largest source of waste by far.
Mr. Plume:
I think it was Franklin who noted: “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain" less sodium in their soup, or 'free healthcare', "will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Anyway, you get the idea; and I think it's Campbell's soup not Cambell's, although that could be a new salt-free brand. Clearly, someone doesn't think highly of fat Americans who drink salty soup, and wishes them all dead.
Let's not get carried away. You'll still be able to buy your own salt and add it to your food if you like. Who would you rather have control of your salt intake, you personally or the food industry?
If that's the case, then we can only assume that it's a raw power grab. Once again the government (or its public employees) doesn't think that reducing salt intake can be "left to the individual," and must be controlled via industry, meaning the government regulation of industry.
No you've got it backwards. Once salt has been added to food by the manufacturer, it can't be removed by the consumer. If the manufacturer adds little or no salt, the consumer still has the option of adding as much or as little salt as she chooses.
Do I?
The consumer can already remove the salt from his diet quite easily, by purchasing low sodium products. The demand is there for low sodium foods, and even no sodium foods. The industry has moved to meet that demand on its own, and has done so for decades. The consumer can choose to avoid high salt intake by changing eating habits, such as using less processed food and more fresh, to which he can certainly add any amount of salt he wishes.
Therefore, the government is pursuing a non-issue here, and they wouldn't pursue this unless they had an agenda that has nothing to do with their purported goal of improving our health.
I'll never, ever understand anyone who thinks that any trade that involves government control of any part of their existence is OK. Further, if they think that trading a healthcare system into which the government has already inserted itself - thus contributing to its present difficulties - can be made perfect by consummation of that role, they are foolish. This article represents a shot off the bow, and is an example of the natural and predictable outcome of obamacare and other healthcare schemes.
If you are regulating healthcare, it's only natural that you must also regulate health, whatever that means. And to that end, regulating health will certainly and predictably be the handmaiden of regulating healthcare, which means our lives are merely a number on one side of a cost-benefit equation. Those rightly concerned about reduced care should also be concerned that it is tantamount to state-ordered euthanasia.
About f^^&ing time. It is impossible to buy processed food that ius not salted to the extreme.
There are those of us who will buy low salt products, but NO ONE makes them.
Try eating a can of Cambell's chicken noodle soup. INEDIBLE.
No wonder Americans are all so sick and fat. You gotta love that freedom to kill yourself.
I try to get as much organic food for my family as possible, but not because of salt. There are far worse things out there than salt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-usbGZez40
Great! Less salt just means more mind killing aspartame and MSG. Not going to touch the golden cancer agents, just reduce competition from a much less addictive, much less dangerous salt.
Government creates problem with USDA, farm lobby & farmer/Corn subsidies leading to processed & fast foods being cheaper than raw foods in local markets. Now government want to solve problem by micromanaging everyone's diet, while allowing previously mentioned subsidies to continue.
Bravo fuckasses.
My first reaction is to move to Salt Lake City; but then, like many who posted on this one, I realize that sugar is my true weakness. Sure, socializing medicine won't have any negative side effects beyond that which is in that ridiculous 2,000+ page document. Sometimes the ride down to hell is faster than I thought.
What a fucken pussies Jeff Harding and Econophile are. Taking on SALT, eh?! "Unlimited salt for all, away with salt controls!", they rage.
Fuck. That. Sheeple need a Nanny to be to told what's good for them. Otherwise, they win Darwin awards.
If you wanted to rage on the intrusion of State on the Individual, then fucken take on the myriad existing prohibition laws, on shit that people enjoy quite a bit more than SALT.
Rant over...
BTW, people eat way too much salt... not that anyone should tell them anything.
20 to life for a bacon sandwich.
Welcome to Socialism, where Salt is a drug and CO2 is a pollutant.
In 4 more years, men won't be allowed to pee standing up...
You'll be allowed but it will cost you 200$ for doing it outside your house.
First of all, the whole "salt causes high blood pressure" myth has been around for years. My grandfather was taken off salt by his quack... er... doctor... to control his angina. Six months later, after suffering through awful food and gagging on unpalatable mush, the poor man mercifully died of a stroke. You see, without salt, and fat, incidentally, your brain gets screwed up. Salt provides the electrolytes that allow the synapses to fire, and acts to shore up the cell walls. Pretending to solve one one problem leads to unintended consequences. We could very well cause an epidemic of strokes and alzheimers without curing anything.
There is a theory out there somewhere that people with already high blood pressure actually crave salt, which acts as a diuretic, to attract fluid and literally flush the system. Like any closed hydraulic system, excess fluid causes higher internal pressure. A natural diuretic relieves the pressure. That was actually what the old-fashioned idea of blood-letting and medical leeches was all about: removing fluid and lowering blood pressure.
Someone in the other world needs to contact Gandhi.
Looks like we may have a lot more folks imprisoned for making and distributing salt.
And what about banning cigarettes? That would immediately improve the health, well maybe not immediately cos of the sudden removal, but that could be catered for.
But no, the tobacco industry gives lots of money to politicians doesn't it!
Regulating salt will have zero effect in preventing disease. Lowering salt intake will not magically reverse sloth and gluttony.
Be your own health insurance. The foods you eat, the activities you partake, and the quality and quantity of sleep you experience will "insure" your health far better than any corporation that "insures" you on paper; for a non-refundable fee, no less.
In this government (and in it's fiat currency) I vote No Confidence. Said government reaffirms my commitment with greater and greater frequency.
It's not about preventing disease. It's about the incremental move towards total control.
Agreed. And in order to not be individually controlled, you must control yourself first. Whether speaking of salt, mandated health "insurance," or whatever.
Collective control, similarly, happens only through each individual's consent.
Welcome to America where there are winners and losers. Sorry that you're a loser. Perhaps you need a new line of work.
So I'll need a prescription for a Margarita. So it goes.
The health benefits will be offset by the number of people who fall down on icy steps and killed on icy roads.
Looks like a prequel to the control of sugar to me.
And if too many serfs object, they will try to regulate bitter tasting substances first - who can be against the elimination of bitter tastes?
It's a great day for a Salt Satyagraha. Don't forget your helmut.
It's a neat trick. First, the government gives you something "free", and then the people develop the mentality that the government must control individual behavior because we now tackle this problem collectively. Now it's salt, but one day the people in power will notice that sexual promiscuity and STDs are very expensive, especially that some are becoming resistant to antibiotics. And there's always AIDS...
Some of my best friends are Class I drugs.
--rQ
Government regulations shown to cause increase in blood pressure, anxiety, depression sometimes leading to rage.
It's old method, give masses some shit to dwell on and some attention will be diverted from much more important problems. Who says that you want be able to use as much salt as you want? Just have it with you everywhere you move, ok?
An extreme example, but directionally, this is where we're heading. Everything will be done "for the greater good", which means the gub'mint is going to start telling you how much X you can intake or how much Y you need to do, because it's not "fair" that your actions drive up healthcare costs.
But what does the gub'mint expect? You've removed all incentives for people to take responsibility of their health under the guise of free healthcare. They just don't have skin in the game, so why should they give a shit if they're 400 pounds and diabetic, somebody else is picking up the tab.
Those that abuse the system in that way are in for a rude awakening when they have to wait 4 hours for a doctor and 16 weeks for a specialist to give them 3 minutes of consultation and some poor level of care because, well, there just aren't enough resources to go around. I guess you get what you pay for.
I demand to know what the FDA is going to do about second-hand sodium. A national law must be imposed declaring all restaurants, bars, airline flights and businesses to be salt free zones and employers must be allowed to refuse/terminate employment for anyone who tests positive for salt.
"As health care costs rise because of government regulation and control, there will be pressure to cut costs as the bill for Obamacare spirals out of control"
Hmmm.... I wonder why Canadian healthcare costs are not spiraling out of control... And French and German healthcare costs are not spiraling...
Hmmm... Maybe greed of big health corporations are the reason for spiraling prices, not regulation and control...
Because cost is supposed to be related to value, and your utopian health care costs far more than its value, and is worth far less.
Leftists keep chiding everyone about how great "free" health care is, all the while hedging on the cost, and how much citizens pay in taxes/fees.
Then there's the opportunity cost tax - how much money you could be making instead of standing in line waiting to be interviewed for treatment.
Actually health care costs are spiraling upwards in Canada. Gov't spending on such is growing at crazy rates. I am paying "surcharges" and "special taxes" over and above my already high "usual" taxes to help fund the ever-increasing costs.
Wake up America...the bill is on it's way.