Bloomberg is going to make you eat less salt whether you like it or not. He plans to pressure the food industry and restaurants to cut salt intake by half over the next decade.

John Tierney is annoyed that Bloomberg is implementing this plan without the benefits of any scientific evidence that a reduction salt intake actually leads to better health. Bloomberg is implementing a major study without the benefits of consent forms, IRB committees, control groups, and a committee of scientists overlooking this massive experiment.

Bloomberg is on a roll, because so far his public health experiments have worked. When he outlawed smoking in bars and restaurants in NYC, most people thought it was insane. Nobody would go to bar anymore. People would find ways around the laws. Sidewalks would be filled with smokers. But it didn't take long for people to get used to it. People still went to bars. Many people stopped smoking. And your clothes didn't smell like an ashtray at the end of an evening.

Tierney doesn't like this plan, because Bloomberg has jumped over the scientists. He's implementing a plan that hasn't gotten the gold star from experts. Truthfully, politicians do it all the time. They put computes in classrooms even though there is no evidence that they improve student performance. They build highways without studying what the impact will be on local communities. They send troops to Iraq without actually checking if there are WMD. That is what public policy is. It's a grand experiment.