US: pressure builds for ‘soda tax’…

... while companies focus on education

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine (‘The public health and economic benefits of taxing sugar-sweetened beverages’, Brownell et al., 19 September) has added to the calls for taxing high-sugar drinks, noting that ‘The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has been linked to risks for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease; therefore, a compelling case can be made for the need for reduced consumption of these beverages.’ It states that data from 2005–2006 show that US children and adults consume, respectively, about 172 and 175 kcal daily per person from sugar-sweetened drinks (double that of 30 years ago), and that ‘a national tax of 1 cent per ounce on sugar-sweetened beverages would raise $14.9 billion in the first year alone’.

President Barack Obama, in an interview in Men’s Health magazine, recently said that he thought that the taxes are ‘an idea that we should be exploring’.

The American Beverage Association, which includes the major soft-drink manufacturers, argue that targeting sugared drinks as the cause of the obesity epidemic is unreasonable, and has formed a campaigning coalition, Americans against Food Taxes, focusing on ‘education not taxation’.

Sources: Financial Times, 30 September 2009; New England Journal of Medicine, 19 September 2009 [link].

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