Bioethics Wendy Parmet Obesity
Humanities
Please carefully read Wendy Parmet’s chapter on obesity and the first amendment (paper attached). Pay special attention to her analysis of the evidence, its weaknesses and strengths and its implications for the constitutional limits on banning advertising. Then be ready to discuss the difference between that standard and Nuffield’s ethical framework (paper attached).
Giving special attention to the issue of tobacco and high caloric drinks. The overarching questions are:
1.What evidence is there that increased taxes will have an impact on conumption? (efficacy)
2.What would be the incidence of taxation? Who would bear the burden in terms of social class? What issues of equity would arise? (equity)
3.Did certain forms of consumption impose collective burdens in terns of health care coasts and did such burdens justify taxes as a way of internalizing negative externalities? (collective good)
4.If taxes reduced consumption and some collective burdens, what if increased life expectancy and reduced morbidity created social costs e.g., social security payments, Medicare. How should we think about those costs as “burdens”?
5.Does the imposition of ever higher taxes on some products involve a kind of coercion and if so was such coercion justified? (autnomy)
Lastly, recount briefly the history of discussions about tobacco and of the contemporary disucssion of taxes on cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and sugary drinks.
