View the new report here: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2013_SodaTaxReportFINAL.pdf

Politicians and public health advocates have long argued taxing sugar-sweetened beverages will reduce healthcare costs while slimming down Americans. However, as CCF’s report highlights, the evidence tying soda to obesity is methodologically weak. Study after study shows soda is not a unique contributor to obesity. Furthermore, studies show that the proposals popular among lawmakers to place a small levy on soda like a penny-per-ounce tax neither raise intended revenue nor curb obesity.

“Soda has become an easy target for those in the public health community, but its bad rap is hardly warranted given the scientific evidence,” said J. Justin Wilson, Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom. “Sugar-sweetened beverages are no more fattening than any other food or drink with calories. It’s only the overconsumption of calories that leads people to put on extra pounds.”

When given the chance to approve or reject soda taxes at the ballot box, Americans overwhelmingly reject them by wide margins.

“Americans don’t need a government takeover of their diets to shed weight,” continued Wilson. “City and state legislators around the country should think twice before considering these tax or ban strategies, as attacking sugar-sweetened beverages does little to slim down residents or improve a politician’s popularity.”

If there is one indisputable rule of dating, it must be this: Don’t discuss politics and religion on the first date. We all know why. These topics arouse visceral passions. Just meeting somebody produces enough anxiety. We don’t want to offend or argue outside the context of a trusted relationship, so it’s best to save those discussions for later. What’s more, with politics in Washington lurching from one crisis to another, any political arguments can get angry in a hurry.

In one sense, even sitting down to dinner and making decisions from the menu is a “political” decision. What we pick depends on and is informed by our worldviews and cultural milieus. When we decide on steak versus shrimp, everything from our upbringing to our religious views swirls in the background.

While these beliefs are often strongly held, they typically come without the partisan vitriol that characterizes national political debates. For most people, “soup or salad” is a judgment of taste every person makes for himself, not grounds for a government mandate.

For others, though, what you eat is their business: They look down their noses at what we put on our plate and criticize our food for not being “local,” “organic” or “humane” enough. If they were the chefs, a three-course meal might go like this: Uber-pricey appetizers because of so-called “fat taxes,” dressings-down for ordering steak or even chicken and a skull-and-crossbones on your “toxic” dessert.

Pretty soon, romantic dinners will be as popular as Congress and used-car salesmen.

The pre-dinner fondue comes under attack from activists who characterize foods as “good” or “bad” and want to tax the latter. Cheese and butter had too much saturated fat for the European food police, who, until recently, taxed both in Denmark. Lower-than-expected tax receipts, public outcry and poor public health results — perhaps caused by the 48 percent of Danes who responded by doing their shopping outside the country — convinced the Danish government to scrap the scheme.

For the main course: Animal-liberation activists serve repulsive name-calling as a side with steak (or chicken, cheese or fish). This is best exemplified by the Humane Society of the United States’ food-policy director, who previously led People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ campaign comparing farming with the Holocaust. (The Humane Society isn’t your local pet shelter, despite its confusing name — it’s a vegan advocacy group like PETA that harasses farmers and tries to drive up the price of dinner.)

If star-crossed lovers dare to order dessert, activists say chocolates will send them the way of Romeo and Juliet. San Francisco endocrinologist Robert Lustig billed fructose, a component of table sugar, as poison and demanded it be regulated like booze.

That view is scientifically lacking. Carbohydrate expert Luc Tappy of the University of Lausanne found the characterization wrong, noting that “public health policies to eliminate or limit fructose in the diet should be considered premature.”

All this overheated rhetoric will cause dinner dates to descend into the same division and despair we find in Washington. That isn’t an appetizing or romantic future.

J. Justin Wilson, Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom, released the following statement on CSPI’s latest media ploy:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest’s “Xtreme Eating Awards” is just another way to chastise the American public for occasionally indulging in life’s simpler pleasures. The notorious self-proclaimed “food cops” appear to fundamentally disagree with the notion of personal responsibility in choosing what we eat. Instead, they believe they know what’s best for the American public, no matter how bland it might taste.

CSPI’s calorie-policing misses the point: Food is only one factor among many in living a healthy, active lifestyle. Any educated nutritionist would agree that obesity rates in America are largely the result of an imbalance between calories-in and calories-out. Any couch-potato pointing to a single food as the reason for their belly bulge is placing blame in the wrong direction.

Restaurants and food companies are in the business of pleasing customers — not eliminating consumers’ choices to meet the demands of health zealots. Nevertheless, it seems that CSPI won’t be happy until restaurants replace their cheeseburgers and pasta with carrot sticks and quinoa salads.

Despite the scary headlines, it is highly unlikely that more than half of Illinoisans will be clinically obese in 2030. The report was generated using statistical assumptions to promote social engineering like the reviled, undemocratic New York City soda ban (“Obesity study: Fat fate ahead; A new report paints a dire picture for the nation’s weight gain, and medical costs by 2030,” news, Sept. 19).

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that the rate of increase in obesity slowed over the past decade, and the Gallup-Healthways survey of health indicators has found that national obesity rates were fairly stable over the past four years.

Hyperbole doesn’t empower anybody to make the lifestyle changes necessary to stick with weight loss. Instead, it reinforces power-hungry politicians and social engineers who want to control every aspect of our lives. We should promote personal responsibility, not a government power grab.

Today HumaneWatch.org, a project of the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to open an investigation into the deceptive fundraising practices of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). A recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that more than 120 complaints have been filed with the FTC since December 2011 regarding HSUS.

Dozens of the complaints come from Americans who have given money to HSUS. HSUS’s deceptive advertising helps fool the unsuspecting public: a recent analysis found that more than 85 percent of the animals in HSUS’s TV appeals between January 2009 and September 2011 were cats and dogs, when just 1 percent of the money donated to HSUS is sent to hands-on pet shelters, according to HSUS tax returns.

“This is deception on a national level, and the FTC needs to act now,” said J. Justin Wilson, CCF’s Senior Research Analyst. “HSUS routinely employs familiar images of sad-looking dogs and cats in their advertisements. Yet, the majority of HSUS’s donations are used to bankroll an animal rights agenda. This emotionally charged bait-and-switch doesn’t just harm donors. It harms needy shelters and pets.”

Recent public polling determined that 71 percent of Americans mistakenly believe that HSUS is a pet shelter umbrella group, and 68 percent wrongly think that HSUS spends most of its money on pet shelters. Less than 1 percent of HSUS fundraising appeals have contained a disclaimer that local humane societies are independent of HSUS.

Some comments to the FTC include:

“I pay $19.00 monthly and have been paying for a minimum of 6 months. I thought that they [HSUS] were the country’s clearing house and this way my little bit of money could help whichever Humane Shelter needed it.”

“I feel the HSUS has advertised deceptively implying that my donation is used to help dogs and cats … I have donated hundreds of dollars over the years.”

“I donate money to help out animals, but I didn’t realize that the HSUS did not help out our local shelters.”

A longer list of quotes and a PDF of the complaints are accessible at HumaneWatch.org.

Today, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is calling out People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) latest hypocritical advertising campaign in New York City, which features actress Penelope Cruz giving the “cold shoulder” to wearing fur. While PETA lectures New Yorkers with a half-naked celebrity and phony “animal rights” message, it also continues to run a slaughterhouse in its own Norfolk, VA headquarters.

Despite years of public outrage over PETA’s euthanasia program, the notorious animal rights group has continued to kill adoptable animals in its shelter at an average of 42 pets every week. According to public records made available by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), a total of 25,840 pets have died at the hands of PETA workers since 1998.

“PETA is far more concerned with funding its media and advertising antics than finding suitable homes for these dogs and cats,” said J. Justin Wilson, CCF’s Senior Research Analyst. “It’s about time PETA’s ‘shelter’ is reclassified as a slaughterhouse.”

Though the group rakes in millions of dollars a year, a recent audit of PETA’s operation found it did not even meet its own published guidelines on running a good shelter. The VDACS inspector astutely described the shelter, which is allegedly open to the public, as a “euthanasia clinic.” A review of 290 of PETA’s animal records found that 245 animals taken in – 84 percent – were euthanized within 24 hours.

“If they did their own research, celebrities like Cruz would turn a cold shoulder to PETA’s media stunts. The animal rights group’s brand is about as toxic as its so-called shelter,” Wilson continued. “Over 25,000 euthanized pets and counting? That’s a lot of fur.”