When Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a stand on sugary drinks, banning large sizes to encourage moderation, his efforts were met with some applause—but also with jeers of derision, one New York Post headline dubbing him the “Soda Jerk.”

But with one third of the nation’s adult population considered obese, and alarming evidence about the health dangers and economic toll of obesity, research on ways to slim America’s collective waistband is sorely needed.  

Stepping back from the frenzy, faculty and students at Stanford Law School are digging into the issue to try to tease out the data and offer an unbiased empirical view. 

Last spring, Jordan Flanders, JD ’15, worked with Michelle Mello (BA ’93) and David Studdert, two members of Stanford Law’s health law faculty, on a research paper that analyzed legal, economic, and political issues raised by sugary drink laws in different countries, explaining five major categories of regulations (taxes, government procurement regulations, school-based regulations, advertising restrictions, and labeling rules) and parsing out the biggest challenges to implementing each. The result, “Searching for Public Health Law’s Sweet Spot: The Regulation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages,” was published in July in PLoS Medicine, a highly regarded international medical journal, and went a long way to inform the debate. 

Stanford has taken the need for lawyers working in the critical area of health law seriously. Mello and Studdert, both professors of law with joint appointments with the medical school, were hired in the last two years. They joined Hank Greely, Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, and Daniel Kessler, professor of law—increasing to four the number of faculty who are fully focused on health law. They are joined by half a dozen law faculty whose scholarship often touches on diverse subjects such as psychology, drug regulation, and environmental issues at this intersection of law.

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