Since our founding in 1978, ACSH has stood for evidence-based science and health in combination with free markets and individual liberty. This is why, for instance, we favor providing relevant nutritional information to consumers but oppose meddlesome policies, such as soda taxes. We feel that an educated public should be free to make its own decisions without politicians micromanaging our behavior.
Occasionally, however, our guiding principles encounter intractable problems. Two of the biggest such problems today involve public health: Vaccination and mental health treatment. The laissez-faire approach simply does not work. The underlying reason for both is that an individual's choices have extremely serious consequences for everyone around him. In the language of economics, a person's decision in regard to vaccination or mental health creates externalities.
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