Policy not backed by research
In a letter to the journal Science, the public health policy wonks at Columbia University pull no punches in describing how the well-known anti-salt advocacy groups have negatively over-reacted to the recent IOM report on the consequences of sodium reduction. More than anything, this over-reaction has revealed that the issue of salt consumption has shifted from an object of science to one of politics for the anti-salt advocates. In the face of growing evidence against the idea of population-wide salt reduction, they have opted to deny, disparage and obfuscate the evidence and replace it instead with an appeal to trust the ‘establishment’ – the same argument that was used centuries ago to convince the masses that the sun revolved around the earth.
