Very impressive piece, and all the moreso because I don't know if you could write it about ANY other public health/expert class failure without it being a politically charged culture war lightning rod.

The fact is, the entire public health establishment is rife with these kinds of mistakes - but in many cases, the errors are much worse and for much more dangerous reasons. There's no big salt lobby that is muddying the water here, and the experts still manage to get it wrong.

But if you point this same kind of criticism at almost any other topic in food, drugs, healthcare, lifestyle, etc. - you end up stepping on someone's very well heeled toes, and depending on the industry, you are likely to be smeared as a MAGA racist or a communist clown.

There's a massive trust gap and it's been well-earned by people in these various expert classes who have been co-opted and captured by the very products, people and industries they're supposed to be overseeing - and the paternalistic "one size fits all" messaging is just icing on the cake.

Trust is not easily earned once it has been lost and our top public health officials have burned through it with caprice, malice and greed in an effort to control people instead of guiding them in a principled way.