Biography"Public health is more like police work than it is about medical care," says Anthony Robbins, chairman of the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) and professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine. Accordingly, his alliance of lawyers and public-health zealots is on a coordinated mission to crack down on our diets. In 2003 PHAI hosted a conference "intended to encourage and support litigation against the food industry." Speaking before an audience of food cops and trial lawyers, Robbins declared: "Food is a target of opportunity."
The role of personal responsibility is a foreign concept in Mr. Robbins's neighborhood. Reminiscent of leading fat-tax proponent Kelly Brownell's statement that children eat like caged animals, Robbins warns: "We are being fattened like a herd." He co-authored an article with fellow PHAI board member Richard Daynard, offering encouragement to "public health professionals who know that overweight and eating habits are not principally a matter of personal choice."
In an act rife with irony, Robbins signed a petition from the Union of Concerned Scientists excoriating President George W. Bush for allegedly manipulating science to fit an agenda. That's comical, given that Robbins was fired from the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health in 1981. According to the Associated Press, his firing followed a business journal denouncing him as a "social activist." One industry publication noted that "Robbins was stripped of his rank as Assistant Surgeon General of the Public Health Service Corps. This is highly unusual, and is generally reserved for cases of misconduct." The New York Times wrote that he "was given a day to clear out, and also stripped of his commission in the Public Health Service."
Robbins is also on the Board of Sponsors of the activists-in-lab-coats Physicians for Social Responsibility, which hypes mercury-in-fish scares and is part of a consortium of activist groups promoting third-party eco-labels for products ranging from organic food to "fair trade" coffee. Other members of the consortium include the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, and, of course, the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Associated Organizations and Foundations
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