Washington – Today, the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is running a full-page ad in the New York Times, continuing its million dollar ad campaign against the New York City Department of Health’s hyperbolic “Don’t drink yourself fat” PSA campaign. The Center will also continue to run ads in the New York Daily News and New York Post that ask New Yorkers, “What’s Next?” and “Big Apple or Big Brother?”
CCF’s ad questions the Department of Health’s paternalistic campaign to demonize certain products. The ads tells readers nationally and in New York City that the government thinks Americans are “too stupid” to make their own food and beverage choices.
The New York City Department of Health’s ads cost almost $300,000 in tax dollars and took three years to develop. They are being posted in the New York subway system for the next three months. The ads vilify juice, sports drinks, and soft drinks.
“The New York Department of ‘Hype’ outdid themselves with these over-the-top, gross-out ads” said CCF’s Senior Research Analyst J. Justin Wilson. “New York City regulators seem dead-set on demonizing and regulating just about every aspect of New Yorkers’ lives. The Department of Health’s campaign is the latest example of the city’s disdainful belief that when it comes to matters of personal choices, the city knows best.”
Wilson continued, “The Department of Health shouldn’t be using tax dollars to run offensive PR campaigns telling people what they should not be drinking. You don’t need to spend $300,000 on focus groups to understand that eating or drinking too much of anything with calories makes people fat.”
The ad reads:
You are too stupid to make good personal decisions about foods and beverages.
The New York Department of Health Hype has used your tax dollars to launch an advertising campaign to demonize soda.
Food cops and politicians are attacking food and soda choices they don’t like. Have they gone too far?
It’s your food. It’s your drink. It’s your freedom.
