A February 1, 2007 piece by Heartland Institute's Sandra Fabry notes the reaction of ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan to measures such as "fat taxes":
While acknowledging there is a measurable major increase in Americans being overweight, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, thinks taxing certain food groups is the wrong answer to the obesity problem.
"Taxing certain foods is one of the strategies the big government advocates are looking at," Whelan said. "From a scientific point of view, I cannot possibly see how that's going to do anything except to add a burden on people at the lowest economic level, who spend such a disproportionate amount of their income on food.
"Food obviously supports life...and the idea of taxing food to deter people from buying certain foods is such an unscientific way of addressing the obesity issue," Whelan said.