Is protecting consumers from uncooked oysters a rotten plan?

In time, maybe we'll all get used to it, but the ban seems particularly egregious in Louisiana, the unhealthiest, most obese place in the country. In New Orleans, which I visited last month, attitudes toward pleasure and health are weighted heavily toward the former. No raw oysters during Jazzfest in late April? Seems impossible to imagine. Like people nowhere else, Louisianans smoke, drink, and eat anything that doesn't eat them first. This is especially true of raw-oyster lovers. The kind of risk/benefit ratios drawn up at the Harvard School of Public Health and the FDA are worthless to them.

It's possible that if the FDA order takes effect, Louisiana will pass overriding legislation enabling its citizens to partake of the raw stuff. And that could produce a silver lining: If the only place to get a "real oyster" is New Orleans, maybe more people will visit.