Comment by Al-Khwarizmi

I think you're overthinking this a bit. I don't think politicians prefer seeing their children suffering illness and premature death rather than pissing off lobbies. The real problem is that most people see the results of studies like this as something abstract, not as something that affects them directly. It's clearly visible with smokers: it's not that they are especially tolerant of dying a horrible death from lung cancer or a stroke (no one is), it's mostly that they don't really think it will happen to them (yes, I know it might be an imperfect analogy because physiological addiction also factors in... but I also know a smoker that found quitting "physically impossible" until he had a stroke, and survived. Once he had saw death's face, and the risk turned from abstract to very concrete, he quit smoking overnight).