Laws for the Common Good, Letter to Editor, Bismarck Tribune, July 27,06.

Laws for the common good
By VINOD SETH
Bismarck
The banner headline across the top of page 4A of our Bismarck Tribune on Tuesday declared, “Some Chicago laws starting to seem intrusive.”

The AP byline story noted the crackdown by the Chicago City Council on “things they deem unhealthy ...”

Apparently, the city council in the past year has passed laws banning “smoking in nearly all public places, use of cell phones while driving” and was now proposing to “restrict fast-food chains from cooking with artery clogging transfat oils.”

Now what’s so intrusive about that?

Even big business, tired of rapidly rising health costs from unhealthy food and sugary drinks, wants change.

Only the fast-food giants who use transfat oils would find such laws intrusive.


Not most people. It is why we elect our leaders, our government: to pass laws for the common good.

We know about secondhand smoke. Driving while talking on the cell phone is like driving drunk. And transfats clog arteries. That’s proved.

Maybe our city commission will go the Chicago City Council one better and ban transfat oils at all restaurants, at cafeterias in schools, colleges and workplaces and in food served to patients in nursing homes and hospitals.

Healthy kids, healthy moms, healthy dads, a healthy Bismarck.

What’s wrong with that?

(Seth is a local physician. — Editor.)