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Defending Cheerios, Cereal of Liberty
Defending Cheerios, Cereal of Liberty
An FDA action has conservatives crying over spilled milk.
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 12:06pm
Disputes over food-label claims are always political. But the current, insane iteration of the American right has walked several steps past the crazy line with its collective reaction to the Food and Drug Administration's demand that General Mills (GIS) tone down its health claims for Cheerios.
"It's fairly obvious to me why the Obama administration is going after Cheerios over possible deceptive advertising," says the Deadenders blog. "Babies love them more then him."
"This is the kind of irritating, intrusive nonsense that makes people weary of their government and every smarmy bureaucratic microbe in it," writes David Crocker of the Behind Blue Lines blog.
The FDA wants General Mills to reel back its claim that Cheerios can "lower your cholesterol 4 percent in 6 weeks." Such a claim is not backed up by science, according to a letter sent to the company by the FDA. The agency says that General Mills is making claims for its cereal that more properly, and according to federal law, should apply only to drugs designed to cure disease. The claims amount to a "serious violation" of laws governing label claims, according to the letter.
That's true, of course. But it hasn't stopped critics from characterizing the situation as President Obama yet again attacking a venerable American institution. Never mind that Obama almost certainly had no idea that his FDA was planning to go after Cheerios.
Food seems to be a common theme among crazy conservatives. For them, wholesome, "American" foods are a-OK. Eurocommie foods are right out. "Washington raised ciggie taxes to pay for SCHIP expansion and are [sic] gearing up to raise soda taxes to pay for Obamacare," writes the reliably nutty Michelle Malkin. "No vice is safe from the health police. Dijon mustard and arugula exempted, of course."
"So I guess now the Communist-in-Chief will declare a War on Cereal," rants Ed Anger of the Weekly World News, proving the increasing irrelevance of old-school parody. You can't tell it from the real thing.
Even in generally saner conservative quarters, marketing Cheerios as medicine is being defended as a matter of liberty. According to David Theroux, stopping General Mills from making questionable health claims is just another of the Obama administration's " 'progressive' (i.e., authoritarian) absurdities."
Theroux is the founder and head of the Independent Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank that opposes the "wars" on terror and drugs and is skeptical on global warming.
The Institute's mission is "to transcend the all-too-common politicization and superficiality of public policy research and debate," according to its Web site. "The Institute’s program is pursued to rigorous standards without regard to any political or social biases."
How about starting with not equating progressive with authoritarian? From there, we can talk about how best to regulate label claims. Would corporate freedom be similarly compromised if, say, Anheuser-Busch InBev started marketing Bud Light as "learning juice," a la Homer Simpson? Or if Kraft's Nabisco started claiming that Oreos bestow the power of flight?
Note, by the way that none of these critics actually addresses the substance of the FDA's argument.
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Comments
1st Amendment issue here
In fact, Oat bran, contained in Cheereos, can do exactly as General Mills claims. It is even possible that GM has actually looked at the effect of Cheereos on cholesterol, etc.. In "44 Liquormart", the US supreme court ruled that verifiable claims made about legal products have 1st amendment protection. So, the FDA may have no legal right to stop General Mills from making such "therapeutic" claims. And yes, the FDA has approached this issue with its usual heavy-handed "enforcement" mentality. The FDA has many competent people working for them on the science end. Hell, I've been on one of their boards. I'm a toxicologist, BTW. But, as anybody who has dealt with them can attest, some of their enforcement people are (er) less-competent in technical matters. My wild guess is that whoever wrote this letter didn't know about the effect of soluble fober on cholesterol levels. Sounds improbable, I know. But I have seen worse. They may not know the science, but they do know the law (or at least think they do ). Combine this with insufficinet oversight and the law-enforcemnt necessity to show they are on-the-job and you get such silly enforcement actions as this one.
"Progressive" Corporatism
Dan, You finally admit at the end of your piece that, “Admittedly, it would have helped if the FDA's letter had been a bit less strident. ‘Enforcement action’ the agency wrote, ‘may include seizure of violative products.’ That's the kind of thing that's bound to startle not only the wingnuts but all of us.” I gather that for you so long as the wording is toned down, it is just dandy to have shakedowns (and yes, authoritarianism) by the FDA of business firms for doing nothing other than voluntarily providing honest goods and services to customers who actually like their products. Moreover, you seem to have no problem with FDA policies that are clear infringements on the First Amendment. Should Slate.com be similarly targeted and be required to register each and every claim that you make? My posting at “The Beacon” blog (http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=2154) further correctly notes that “the FDA is not disputing the claims by General Mills, but simply that the FDA insists that Cheerios be registered as a ‘drug’ for the firm to be allowed to continue communicating its product’s proven merits. In other words, there is no issue of fraud here, other than the FDA’s claims themselves to be protecting the public from eating Cheerios.” Hence, your point about fraud is immaterial. The problem with “progressives” is that they have indeed been authoritarians, in consistently believing that statism is somehow a miraculous cure for all human ills and a necessity for creating human well-being. Indeed, it was “progressives” who produced the prohibitions of alcohol and drugs (including marijuana), the cartelization (i.e., corporatism) of American business firms and industries a la government regulation, the imperialist crusades starting with the Spanish-American War (including the Philippine-American War) and horror of World War I, etc., and today the Therapeutic and Nanny States (more authoritarianism), as evident in your apologia here for the FDA. Those interested instead in in-depth examinations of the fraud, waste, and health risks created by the FDA should go to http://www.fdareview.org/. David J. Theroux President The Independent Institute http://www.independent.org/
Mr. Theroux,
Thanks for writing.
First, this item wasn't so much about the FDA's action as it was about the crazed reaction to it.
And there are several other false assertions and mischaracterizations in your response. Such as the idea that General Mills is doing "nothing other" than trying to sell cereal to people who want it, but that the FDA won't let it. Clearly, it's not the cereal itself that's at issue, so let's not pretend that it is.(By the way, I eat Cheerios myself nearly every morning, mainly because it's good for you).
Next, nobody's trying to regulate "each and every claim," but only the ones that make Cheerios out to be a magical elixir that will cure disease. It's a breakfast cereal. I don't really have a stance on the particular action the FDA took, though I think that the FDA's threat to designate it as a drug is actually pretty weird. However, the underlying issue -- that General Mills is marketing its breakfast cereal as a cure for disease -- is problematic. What, if anything, should be done about that by the federal government is worthy of reasoned debate. But it's not worthy of incendiary language or appeals to talk-radio, culture-war ideology. Nothing is.
There is a good, sound, reasonable libertarian argument that could be made against the FDA's action. You didn't make it. You didn't even try. You merely spewed a lot of buzzwords and adjectives, and drafted a lot of irrelevant subject matter into the debate.
I'm not sure how anyone can equate claims made to sell a product (General Mills, or any other company) with claims made to support an argument (Slate, or any other publication), but I suppose it's a lot like equating "progressive" with "authoritarian." Yes, as you say in your citation of the wholly irrelevant "imperialist crusades" and "the horror of World War I," "progressives" have been known to be authoritarian (I live in the Bay Area, so I am well aware of this tendency). But so have arch-conservatives. The rather simple logic that should apply here doesn't; that progressives have been guilty of authoritarianism doesn't mean they are always guilty of it. Southern politicians have often been racist, but that doesn't mean "Southern politicians are racist." And regulating health claims on cereal boxes isn't automatically an incidence of authoritarianism, nor does it have anything to do with the horrors of World War I.
In any case, as I said, my post was mainly concerned with crazy, incendiary, ideology-driven language, and the fact that it was being applied to the regulation of health claims on cereal boxes. I noticed that, this morning, on your blog, you were even more pedal-to-the-metal with the adjectival, dogmatic descriptions of what's going on here. The FDA, you wrote, engages in "brown-shirt (i.e., police-state) shakedowns."
As far as I'm concerned, this puts you in the same league with the Michelle Malkins and Glenn Becks of the world. Do you really want to be in that league? This kind of nonsense doesn't help anyone understand anything. And it surely doesn't square with your organization's stated mission "to fully understand the nature of public issues and possible solutions [by adhering to] the highest standards of independent scholarly inquiry." Nor does it square with your organization's promise to apply "rigorous standards without regard to any political or social biases." Nor does it really address the problem stated in your site's "about us' section, where you complain that debates over public policy have become "too politicized."
That's true, and it's a huge problem. But I'm really not sure how you hope to solve it by calling your political opponents "brown shirts," or by claiming that regulating health claims on cereal boxes is a "police state" tactic.
Finally, here is a suggestion for further reading.
If I am follwing this
If I am follwing this correctly, the FDA is addressing an undocumented or unsupported health claim. Like it or not, this is what the FDA does. Dan is right to focus on the reaction because, to me, it shows how the right has this tendency toward populism that is highly symbolic, and quite often phony. General Mills can take care of itself here. I have my doubts whether the FDA is really the best way to ensure safety and promote the availability of effective products. But nobody is truly arguing about that, rather it's about another exception for an American icon that appears to my cynical eye to have a PR/lobbying firm in the background and the usual suspects making hay in the foreground. Go to any supplement store and check the packaging and the weasel-worded pseudo-efficacy claims. The extent to which the labelling on these products goes to appear to be saying something, but avoid being pinned down is surreal. If General Mills doesn't have the evidence, why should it get to make such a detailed objective-sounding claim? I used to be a member in good standing with the right/libertarian/conservative wing, but have come to really despise its echo chamber, which is every bit as annoying as the canned, factoid soup that emanates from Public Citizen, CSPI, Sierra Club, etc. BTW, the Independent Institute's Robert Higgs has a very interesting presentation concerning how authoritarian the regulatory state can be. Early New Deal agencies had these amazing stamps and documents that were really over-the-top, extreme versions of "do not remove" pillow tags that were quite detailed in their threats.
More on "Progressive" Corporatism
Dan,
It would appear that you were the one who is intolerant in initiating the name calling here by dismissing the obvious point we are making that the FDA's actions against General Mills's widely popular product Cherrios has nothing to do with science, health, economic findings, or common decency. How dare we question the FDA? Because it is completely out of line here and overall in its overt protectionism of major drug firms and other interests.
As such, the FDA is acting as a tyranny here, plain and simple, by pursuing what economists accurately call "rent-seeking" or predatory actions by a politically operating and influenced bureaucracy that implements its decisions through yes, police power. The laughable attack on Cheerios is a petty, power-mongering move made possible because "progressives" such as you carry the PR water for FDA bufoonery. Try to interfere with or ignore the FDA's edicts, as many will attest, and you will quickly know what is indeed absurdly wrong with "regulating health claims on cereal boxes."
Perhaps the following might also be of help regarding the history of "progressivism" in America and its support for neo-puritanism, militarism, corporatism, and authoritarianism. Many distinguished scholars have addressed the authoritarian and indeed imperialist basis of "progressivism." Maybe the following books might be helpful:
The Decline of American Liberalism, by Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr.
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=81
Crisis and Leviathan, by Robert Higgs
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=15
Or even perhaps the following:
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/strombrg.html
As for your comments on our work, may I just say that all of our work is based on scholarly peer-review, including that on the FDA, from which which we base our assessments. In this regard, my initial blog posting and comment on yours provides the detailed references. If you disagree, I would suggest that you show where such analysis is wrong. As it is, none of your claims pass such scrutiny.
seizures
Although the threat of seizures may cause people fits, most such cease and desist letters are required to describe the full potential consequences of the violation of the law/regulation/ruling. Read a DMCA take-down sometime, and it'll make this look gentle. Usually the letter is a wake up call to the manufacturer, at which point negotiations begin over how long the product has to clear the shelves and so on. "War on Cereal," heh. These folks really don't have enough to do. There are so many more substantive things they could be complaining about.
Where were they....
Where were these people when the CPSIA was passed? This brilliant law made every craft-selling Grandma in the country a lawbreaker unless she proves that each pair of handknit booties is lead-free - and has an individual batch-tracking code in case of a recall. A law that clearly stifles free-enterprise by requiring small mom-and-pop businesses to meet the same expensive testing requirements as mega-corporations - even when each material has already been proven lead-free. That law was signed by Bush and passed by almost every single legislator then in power on both sides of the aisle. Cheerios should get a free ride for breaking a long-standing law that makes sense "Don't make false claims about your product" but small businesses are being forced to close because of an insane law that turns them into criminals for producing handmade items from proven safe materials.