Last week the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the Food and Drug Administration) announced it would curtail the controversial practice of including "lost pleasure" as a "cost" of health regulations when it does a cost/benefit analysis of the regulations. Including "lost pleasure" in the analysis artificially reduced the projected health benefits of regulations regarding, for instance, cigarettes and calorie counts. In one instance, Reuters reports, a "lost pleasure" calculation reduced the projected benefits of an anti-tobacco measure by 70%.
The Reuters story is here. Public Citizen's press release on this development is here.
