Washington – The media frenzy continues as major newspapers editorialize about last week’s bombshell announcement that excess weight was accountable for just 26,000 deaths—a stark contrast to the bloated 400,000 deaths statistic produced and widely publicized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last year.
Despite the new, more accurate findings, CDC Director Julie Gerberding refuses to change course on the agency’s earlier estimate, even as her once-heralded study now appears completely bankrupt.
The Center for Consumer Freedom has been a staunch critic of the 400,000 deaths figure for many months and now a growing number of voices from the media are also calling on the CDC to come clean.
The CDC’s 400,000 deaths estimate is the “Chicken Little scare of 2004.”
– Baltimore Sun editorial, April 22, 2005
“Recently, we were warned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that obesity was going to be the new No. 1 killer in America. Politicians sprinted to come up with pioneering ways to legislate against the dreaded Twinkie. Now, a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association debunks the whole report…”
– David Harsanyi, Denver Post columnist, April 25, 2005
“Our first instinct was to berate the federal scientists for failing basic arithmetic. But the new news is so good for so many Americans, including us, we’ll forgive them.”
– Newsday editorial, April 22, 2005
