Mike James. former news anchor KING TV
Mike James, a former KING TV anchor and a friend on FB castigated me because, according to him, the support for the initiative overturning the tax came from the over wealthy soda pop industry. I agree corporate self interest in our society is an evil …
BUT .. that does not mean the industry position is wrong. As far as I can see Seattle’s soda tax is based on the same sort of alt truth that comes from the right. I do not think there is evidence that glucose or the other sugars used in soda pop cause obesity or diabetes.
Mike:
If you have better data then I do, please show me evidence that glucose is toxic. I am open and would gladly read it and give you my opinion.
I did read literature cited by the sugar tax advocates. Saying something is harmful is not hard … just look at the failure of the efforts that marijuana is harmful to prove that. From what I have read the evidence against glucose is on a par with the evidence against marijuana. Making decisions based in false data is a very bad idea.
Proving anything is not harmful is very hard. The demonization of glucose could be true but the literature I have read does not do that. It refers to correlations that are all confounded by other data .. eg a sedentary life style, other source of excess calories, etc. I suspect there is a correlation between diabetes school age use of cell phones too.
Furthermore, I see this as bad tax policy. Thethe opponents were correct that this tax was based on a clever finding of a loophole in WA state’s food exemption from sales tax. The new law closes a loophole that ought not to be there.
Liberals are as willing as the right to use alt truths. The sufar war is similar to the campaign against e-cigarettes. Frankly, I am unaware of ANY evidence that inhaling steam is harmful. I am not even aware of evidence that inhaling nicotine is harmful, I do know that some people use e-cigarettes and vaping as a way of weaning themselves off actual cigarettes and they come in a variety of accessories that are similar to these vw box mods. While I can imagine that propylene glycol might be harmful, PG is almost always in vape fluid but again I have nit read evidence that it is harmful. E cigs fluids may be harmful but demonizing them because they look nasty is stupid.
Bottom line for me, is that I am a scientist. If there were real data about glucose or marijuana or propylene glycol I would ban all three.