Include melanie moderator mark thompson. Also, the mayor of north new jersey. You know when we get together as black folk in this country and we have an agenda. You know we also have to unite with other people to win. The object is to win. We dont want to struggle for struggles state. There are hundreds of people who are in jail, a been beat, they are dead. We are not activists and revolutionaries are fun. My mother and father did not participate in the movement for awards, for twitter, to be praised. They did it because it was necessary. Followed at 10 00 by senator ben sasse on american politics. It turns out the meaning of america is persuasion. The meaning of america is love. The meaning of america is building a better project or persuading someone to marry you or persuading someone to join your church or synagogue. 6 30, newtvening at grich, van jones, and discussed opioid addictions. People have to change their minds, but they also have to change their brains back. This is a biological thing. And oncen is an organ these doctors and you these pills and say we took a molar out of your mouth, take these pills, there are a lot of people for who those pills damage that organ. On cspan. Org or listen on the free cspan app. Former senator tom harkin talked about nutrition and Food Marketing in the contributor factor to the problem of childhood obesity. Senator harkin represented iowa for 30 years. Los event was cohosted in angeles by ucla and harvard university. It is 45 minutes. Michael ok. If i could have your attention, please. Thank you, everyone. I know you are enjoying your neighbors company as we eat our lunch. What i would like to do now is introduce our keynote speaker for lunch, and when he is done, we will have a few more minutes for you to converse and introduce yourself to your neighbors and your tables. We are very honored to have former senator tom harkin with us today as our keynote speaker. I got to know senator harkin when i was on the law faculty in arkansas many, many years ago, when i first got involved in food and agriculture law and have always appreciated his support since then. He serves on our board our outside Advisory Board for our program, and one of the reasons of what drew him to our board and program was not necessarily our relationship, or my good looks. It was because he has grandchildren here in los angeles, and i have learned that connection usually draws people in. But even though i do not know that his biography needs to be read it is in your program i do want to highlight a few things. First of all, senator harkin has a very long record of public service, from congress and the state of iowa, to the senate, starting in 1990. He retired from the senate in january 2015. His ability, although it is not listed in his biography i will state it his ability to be a bipartisan advocate to Cross Party Lines is sorely missed in washington these days. Senator harkin is well known for his work with the american disabilities act. In addition to his great work in that area, he has also had a great track record with respect to health and food, and children. Following the death of senator ted kennedy, senator harkin, in 2009, became the chairman of the labor and pensions committee, and has made a real trailblazer in combating obesity, having led the efforts to require School Districts participating in the National SchoolLunch Program to establish School Wellness policies. Other plans and efforts have led to the 2010 child nutrition bill, and the healthy hungerfree kids act. He has also worked closely with the ftc over the years, which was discussed in our previous panel, and has commissioned reports and studies, and has pressed the industry to adopt uniform, systemwide, ageappropriate guidelines for Food Marketing to children. As you can probably tell, senator harkin is a well of information and is a walking historian when it comes to these issues. There is no one that knows the politics, and that was referenced in both panels the politics involved in food policy and food law. There is no one that knows the politics of food policy and health than senator harkin. Again, it is very gracious of him to be here with us and to share with us not only the history, but his vision moving forward, which is very important. If you know senator harkin, he is about walking the talk not , just talking. He is a wonderful center that harkens his library in des moines, iowa, at drake university. I was there a few weeks ago. I met with his staff. I am impressed with their vision and what they are trying to accomplish. It was a delight to visit with them. He is still looking ahead, looking forward, looking at health and wellness in schools, the workplace, and all the activities he is involved in. He may be retired, but he is not really retired. Senator harkin, on behalf of this audience and your grandchildren, we are happy to have you here today, and we invite you to come up to the podium. [applause] sen. Harkin thank you very much, michael. Let me just reinterpret what he said. He said that i am a walking historian on this. What that really means is, he is an old guy. But thank you for that kind introduction and for your many years of leadership here at this program at ucla. Stuart want to thank resnick and Lynda Resnick for your great and ross in establishing this Program Great generosity in establishing this program at ucla, and even beyond that, what i know of you personally, and lynda, your support for health and wellness in all of its capacities and all of its venues around the country. So, stuart resnick, thank you very much for your generosity. [applause] sen. Harkin it is an honor to be here with so many people that i do admire, like stewart, michael, and kelly brownell, who i have followed for so many years. His leadership, back when we were always trying to do things and calling upon him for his expertise. Of course, Michael Jacobson with the center for science and the Public Interest again, always on the cutting edge. Always giving good guidance and direction on how to go. Jacob, also with harvard, and Marlene Schwartz well, i shouldnt there are so many people i have admired for so long and still do for all the great work that you do, and thanks for asking me to be part of this program today. So, i will try to talk for just a few minutes, but like an historian, i tend to get sidetracked and get off onto little stories like this. Let me just start by saying this america is in the grips of a massive child abuse scandal. America is in the grips of a massive child abuse scandal threatening the future of millions of unsuspecting gains kids. Every day, these perpetrators come right into our homes and our schools. As we now know, they are on iphones, social media, the internet. They are talking directly to children, and they are tempting them into risky behavior, threatening their future, and parents are all but helpless to stop it. Child abuse . Well, what else do you call it when the junk Food Industry spends 12 billion bombarding kids with tens of thousands of ads each year from everything from monster thick burgers with 1420 calories and 107 grams of fat, to 20 ounce pepsi and coke . Feeding and epidemic of childhood obesity. What else do you call it when a beast children as young as 10 are diagnosed with type two young as 10en as are diagnosed with type two diabetes which previously had an onset age of about 40 . Well, thats what i call it, child abuse. It is estimated that children ages six to 11 you know these figures, average 28 hours a week watching tv. They are exposed to up to as many as 20,000 ads per year and as many as 21 fast food ads each day. The center for disease and control and prevention it used to be called the center for Disease Control, and in 1990, i added prevention, so now it is the center for Disease Control and prevention. [applause] sen. Harkin just an aside. [laughter] sen. Harkin anyway, they said obese children are twice what it was just 30 years ago. Less than 1 of kids meals combinations at restaurants meet international standards. Nutritional standards. Less than 1 , and just 3 meets meet the industrys own and you heard about this earlier the childrens food and Beverage Advertising Initiative just 3 meets their own standards, and are touted kids live well nutrition standards. 3 in restaurants. Now, you can get all of this from the rudd center, who was here earlier, with Marlene Schwartz, who is here, founded by dr. Brownell. You can get all of the information from the rudd center. Fast Food Marketing via social media and mobile devices is growing exponentially, we have heard that, too, including spanishlanguage aimed at hispanic youth. I will have more to say about that. A lot has been said about selfregulation we have to go to the industry and get selfregulation. Well, the same thing i talked about, the childrens food and Beverage Advertising Initiative of 2007 just get this, one aspect of it, four large Candy Companies mars, hershey, kraft andstle nestle pledged they would not advertise to children, however there was a 45 increase in 2011 compared to 2007 he fortis went before this went into effect, before it was adopted. How is that possible . Exposed toen are candy ads that go to a general audience but that kids watch. So sure, they agreed not to aim their ads at kids, but they increased not quite doubled, but close to doubled the amount of ads they were running on candy on programs they know kids are watching along with their family. Again, when people talk about selfregulation, there is another thing called caru it has been a dismal failure. There is no teeth. There is nothing they can do, and it has just been failure. Other countries australia, european union, canada, they try to regulate through voluntary efforts also, and quite frankly, most of them have failed miserably. Interestingly enough, in my research, the two most extreme controls on advertising to children regarding food was in norway and quebec. I look at that and thought how do they do that . Well, they do not have a constitution to worry about like we do in the united states. What they have done is they have removed the legal right to advertise to all children under the age of 12. There is no legal right to do that in those countries. And we know the American Psychological association we know that Young Children, and cut and dice the different ages, 12, 10, 14 Young Children are more likely to accept ads as truthful, unbiased, and as we know, the air they are, the more difficulty they have separating commercials from regular programs. Again, we have very few to zero regulations right now basically in the united states. I will cover a couple of those. I mentioned caru the childrens advertising review unit established in 1974. We tried to do stuff with them all the time i was in the house the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s nothing. We would get nothing done with them whatsoever. Now, again, i know we are here talking about food, but i think about it in terms of a Broader Health policy. I have made this statement many times in the past in america it is easy to be unhealthy, and hard to be healthy. Easy to be unhealthy, hard to be healthy. That should be changed around. It should be easy to be healthy, and harder to be unhealthy. That comes down to all kinds of things. We are building subdivisions without sidewalks, so kids cannot go outside and walk to school. We have Elementary Schools being built in America Today without a playground. Bike and pedestrian lanes i tried to get this done on a highway bill years ago to say if you have any federal money for streets, roads things like that, bridges you had to incorporate i did not say you had to do it, i just said you had to incorporate in the design a bike and walking cap lane path lane alongside that road. I lost. We still do not have it, but in europe they do. You build a bridge in europe, it has to have a bike path lane or new roads, but not yet in america. Just, again, the things that, again, go to providing for exercise and people to be out. We just dont do that in america, and we need to have this as part of our planning process, so that people can actually get out and walk, bike, not be afraid of getting run over and hit and killed. One history thing i wanted to go over because it has been brought up here, and that is the federal trade commission. I was there when all of this happened as history. In the 1970s, there were three entities there was the action for childrens television, Michael Jacobson the center for science and Public Interest, and consumers union, all petitioned the federal trade commission to act on behalf of childrens advertising to do something about childrens advertising. The commissioner of the fda also weighed in on this, and petitioned the ftc to do something about it. Michael purchased was the head of the ftc at the time. You could read his book about the revolt against regulation that he published later on, but here is what happened. The federal trade commission put out a notice i do not have the exact date here, but it was right around 1977, the b 1976. Maybe 1976. Michael jacobson maybe he knows. Maybe 1978. Ok. Put out a notice of proposed regulations on regulating advertising to children, and it would ban all tv ads to an audience with significant portions of children ban tv ads for Food Products posing serious dental health, and for sugar products not included in the ban to be balanced by Health Disclosures funded by the advertisers. I remember this very well, and boy, Congress Went nuts. The industry went nuts. That is the first time i ever heard the phrase nanny state. All these speeches on the floor of the house, senators government is going to take away parental rights, take the rights away from parents, and give it to this nanny state, and all kinds of ridiculous things like that came out. In fact, in 1978 it became a big issue in the 1978 campaign. I know. I was running for reelection. I almost got my head handed to me because i came out in favor of this, doing something about advertising to kids. Well, i won the election, obviously, but i remember being labeled as being in support of the nanny state at that time. So, it became a big issue. A lot of people lost elections in 1978 because of that. Well, for a lot of reasons but that played a big role. People got so scared that when the new congress came in in 1979, they began to work and have hearings on these proposed regulations hearings that brought in all the industry, and stuff, and it just became overwhelming. Finally, the congress, in 1980, passed a law. Ftc improvements act. Congress caved. Here is what it said, in essence. The ftc shall not have any authority to promulgate any will rule in this proceeding or any subsequent proceedings dealing with children on the basis of a determination by the commission that such advertising constitutes an unfair act or practice in or affecting commerce. Now, i know some people talked about this earlier. There are basically two prongs the ftc uses in its regulation of advertising one prong is deceptive, one prong is unfair. Ok. Since 1980, the ftc has had more authority to regulate advertising to you than to your kids and grandkids. Let me repeat that. The ftc has more authority to regulate advertising to adults than it does to kids. Now, you tell me that makes sense. They stripped it. The only problem they can use is deceptive. They can use deceptive or unfair. Unfair has different prongs on it, too, but they can use deceptive and unfair on adults, but only deceptive on kids, and as people have pointed out many times, an ad can be truthful when it is applied to kids, but grossly unfair because kids cannot understand the difference. So it is just unfair to be able to do this kind of advertising to kids, but we have had to live with that ever since. In fact, it got so bad that congress defunded the ftc for some time took away its authority for 10 or 12 years before it came back before we were able to get the reauthorization and the funding back for the ftc. Now, why did i tell you all of this . Because i have had in my hearings in the past, and if i still had a lot of staff, i could have had slides here, but you look, if you graph, beginning around 1980, 1981, the increase in obesity in children, and you also look at what happened in our schools, because the industry took this as a green light. It started at that time. There was a little bit before, but not much 1980, 81, you start to see vending machines in all of our schools, up and down hallways. You saw more and more Companies Making exclusive rights with schools coke, pepsi things like that. They made exclusive contracts with them. I remember once, 25, 30 years ago, i visited an Elementary School, and it was kids in kindergarten, first grade, sitting on coke chairs cocacola chairs little chairs, red and white with cocacola on them. This is what the kids sat on every day. You charge that, and you will see this huge increase in junk food in schools, and you see the increase for advertisements for kids in the 1980s, and you graph the increase in obesity, and they just track. It is eerie how they track going up in the 1980s. Well, in the 1990s, some of us tried to get soft drinks taken out of schools. We tried several times, but came to nothing on farm bills and Different Things like this. We just could not get it done. So, i thought, well, maybe there is Something Else we can do. I had a brief i had two brief shining moments a brief moment in 2001 and 2002 where i became chairman of the senate ag committee. Well, i wont get into that jim jeffers left the Republican Party became a democrat so i became chairman just when they were doing a farm bill. So, i thought maybe i can