The evil of stifling debate

William McGurn's op ed in today's Wall Street Journal on "Harry Reid's 'Evil' Moment," brings to mind the ongoing similar campaign to de-legitimize dissent from the orthodoxy of salt reduction. McGrurn recalls the mainstream media outrage when U.S. presidents described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and North Korea, Iran and Iraq (at the time), an "axis of evil." More recently, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused those opposing President Obama's health care recommendations as "un-American" and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid following in her train calling those protesting the "public option" health care proposal "evil mongers," the media have been silent about the characterization.

Indeed, it does seem a bit over the top to use the same rhetoric to describe opponents in a domestic American political debate with the same terms as truly "un-American" regimes that employ (or employed) cruel repression as their modus operandi.

What struck me in the McGurn column, is the parallel tactic being employed by proponents of universal sodium reduction in an attempt to deny the controversy among scientists about the scientific underpinnings offered to support having all Americans eat less salt. When the Royal Society of Chemistry conducted a debate in London several years ago, I laid out the evidence amassed by renowned scientists in peer-reviewed medical journals showing the lack of evidence of a health benefit for reduced-sodium diets; my opponent, Dr. Graham MacGregor, eschewed the science and reminded the audience that I was not a medical doctor and my salary was paid by salt producers. When the president of the International Society of Hypertension used his presidential address to decry the misdirection of anti-sodium proponents in focusing on blood pressure rather than health impacts, the mainstream groups pointed out that the Salt Institute has consulted with this acknowledged expert -- even though the consultancy was unpaid -- as if to say that somehow our seeking after the best quality scientific advice and the doctor's proffering his expertise to those dissenting from a view to which he had repeatedly objected is illegitimate.

Just as Americans should recoil from attempts to intimidate debate on legitimate Congressional debate, so should we be concerned at attempts to delegitimize the public health nutrition debate on sodium and health.