The New York Times editorialized (Dec. 11) that Hardee's new Thickburger is a "setback for public health." You be the judge as to who has been the bigger threat to public health, Hardee's or the Times. Below is the Times' editorial. My comments are in bold and indented.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
New York Times
December 11, 2004

Dan Aykroyd once played a toy manufacturer on "Saturday Night Live" who sold children perilous products like bags of glass. If he branched into fast food, Mr. Aykroyd's character would probably have come up with Hardee's new Monster Thickburger, an artery-clogging mountain of Angus beef slabs, bacon, American cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame-seed bun. It weighs in at 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat - quite possibly one of the most lethal pieces of food out there.

What is "lethal" food? Who has ever been killed by a piece (or even pieces) of food -- allergic reactions, poisoning, choking and the like not included?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest calls it "the height of corporate irresponsibility."

Since when is selling food that people want to eat "irresponsible"? Anyway, CSPI is hardly an authority on responsibility. I've addressed CSPI in many earlier columns on Olestra, Quorn, French fries and potato chips, soda, and pizza, to name a few.

Jay Leno joked that it was being served in little cardboard boxes shaped like coffins. But Hardee's is hardly alone. Burger King's Double Whopper with cheese has more than 1,000 calories and more than 65 grams of fat, and Wendy's Classic Triple with cheese has 940 calories, with 56 grams of fat.

Calories, schmalories. Active people -- workers, athletes, students, youngsters -- require a higher caloric intake. Not everyone eats three meals per day -- some eat only two, both of which necessarily will contain more calories. And, imagine this, inactive people might, from time to time, simply enjoy a Thickburger, Whopper or Classic Triple or some other high-calorie treat just because it tastes good.

If restaurants want to serve food like this, they should print the calories and fat content on the overhead menus.

Food labeling as a way to get people to eat less has already proved to be a failed strategy.

But consumers have to be responsible, too, and start making the mental connection between gargantuan fast-food burgers and fries and heart attacks and strokes.

I'd like for the Times to name one person whose heart attack or stroke was caused by fast food alone.

What is driving Hardee's is a simple fast-food formula: poor nutrition sells.

Wrong, again. Tasty, affordable, convenient food sells. Also, fast food does have nutritional value. The Thickburger has plenty of protein and many other nutrients -- essential parts of everyone's diet.

The company says its sales have been up steadily since it introduced its Thickburger line last year. In its rollout of the Monster Thickburger, Hardee's has gamely played up the new burger's sheer excess with the ad slogan, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

If we're going to pick apart slogans, how about the Times' slogan, "All the News That's Fit to Print"? Remember Jayson Blair? What parts of Blair's reports were "fit to print"?

It is a setback for public health, but a triumph for truth in advertising.

Let's see... the New York Times and public health.

• On April 20, 1969, the Times hailed the "revolt" against the insecticide DDT and urged all states to ban DDT.
• On July 7, 1969, the Times backed the National Audubon Society's campaign to ban DDT.
• On April 29, 1972, the Times urged then-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator William Ruckleshaus to overrule an administrative law judge's ruling that DDT was not harmful to humans or wildlife.
• On June 9, 1985, the Times blamed DDT for a population explosion in Ceylon -- the eradication of malaria enabled the population to grow from 5 million in the 1940s to 16 million in 1985.
• On August 29, 1986, the Times continued to bad-mouth DDT by equating it with "the disasters of our own age: Hiroshima, DDT, Bhopal and now Chernobyl."

Thanks, then, to the efforts of the Times to make the use of DDT virtually impossible, billions of cases of malaria (and related suffering and lost productivity) and millions of deaths have resulted.

Millions (billions?) of people are literally going to have to choke on Thickburgers before Hardee's gets to be anywhere near the threat to public health that the New York Times has been!

Tell the Times what you think is the bigger threat to public health: Hardee's Thickburger or their thickheads!