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Are Junk Food Sellers Accountable for Harming Our Health?

Dutch citizens recently won what could be a game-changing legal verdict against the Shell Oil Company.  Shell is being held accountable for its role in a range of problems created by global climate change.  

Going from the gas pump into the convenience store:  are those making & selling unhealthy food & beverages liable for the growing pandemic of diabetes & heart disease--caused to a major extent by unhealthy nutrition?  

Given the past success of tobacco, vaping and opioid litigation in the USA, it seems that companies which profit from popular products that harm people may not get a free ride forever.  

Of course, many argue that individual consumers are choosing to eat & drink unhealthy stuff.  If they want to do that, let them--and don’t blame the companies who supply them.  The problem is: those individuals often do not have the money to pay for their lifelong chronic diseases.  So those with healthy lifestyles end up with much of the tab—with their taxes & ever-increasing health insurance premiums subsidizing junk food's chronic consequences. (And what the healthy folks don't pay for,  we allow our national political leaders to put on the federal debt credit card--for future generations to deal with.)

As health costs become increasingly unbearable, we should expect more litigation targeting those making money by causing chronic disease. 

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