Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News

Detroit —A nonprofit medical group is calling for Mayor Dave Bing to impose a moratorium on new fast food restaurants.

Citing a study that shows Detroit has the more fast-food restaurants than four other cities with similar population sizes, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is calling for the moratorium.

"I'm writing you to declare a public health emergency," the letter from Susan Levin, the group's director of nutrition reads. "…It's time to tackle Detroit's heart disease problem head on. A moratorium on new fast food restaurants could be a critically important step toward fighting this epidemic."

The group says the moratorium is needed because "Detroit's high-fat and meat-heavy diets" have helped cause heart problems. More than 3,400 Detroiters die of heart disease each year, and the city has the fourth-highest rate of heart disease deaths of all U.S. cities, according to the World Health Organization.

In 2008, Los Angeles imposed moratorium on new fast food restaurants with neighborhoods with high obesity rates and numerous stores. In New York City, officials required fast food chains to post calorie counts on menus and displays.

In 2005, ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick sought a "fat tax" on fast food. It went nowhere.

"We decided to take on fast food in general because the quality of most menu items is rather poor. The whole country is suffering from these kinds of statistics," said Levin, whose group has produced a commercial about the issue.

The anti-McDonald's commercial is set in a morgue, the group said. It has yet to run traction in Detroit, but has run in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Detroit has 73 fast food restaurants, including 32 McDonald's within the city's 139 square miles, the group said.

"We decided to make a commercial that targets fast food and makes the point that these types of food are related to the diseases that kills us the most. Detroit is probably in a worse situation than a lot of other cities," the group said.
City officials did not immediately respond.


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