Advocates see Phila. vote as 'tipping point' in soda wars
Posted on June 9, 2016 | Philly.com by Don Sapatkin
Tipping point, inspiration, harbinger. Those were the words that public health advocates are using to describe Philadelphia City Council's vote to advance the first big-city levy on soda.
"The arc of history is bending toward public health," said Jim O'Hara, health promotion director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been pushing for years for taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages as a way to attack epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
America is about to skewer its sugar-industrial complex—one nutritional label at a time
Posted on May 20, 2016 | Quartz by Chase Purdy
Americans are about to find out exactly how much sugar they’ve actually been eating—like it or not. The US government today (May 20) unveiled a new policy requiring food companies be more transparent with consumers about what’s in their products.
Proposed Philly soda tax gets wide attention
Posted on May 9, 2016 | Philly.com by Julia Terruso
David Goldberg, marketing director for Action for Healthy Food, a Seattle-based nonprofit, says he thinks the opposite is true. "The soda industry tends to do better when what they need to do is move legislators," Goldberg said. "It's easier to put the squeeze on legislators behind the scene."
Goldberg sees this year, with so many looming proposals, as critical to the soda tax movement.
"This idea, when it was proposed by Bloomberg a decade or so ago, it was seen as a fringe idea," Goldberg said. "To see it come up in the presidential campaign, that was a watershed moment. It shows it's gaining more mainstream acceptance."
Harvard Researchers Say Philly Soda Tax Could Save $197 Million
Posted on May 3, 2016 | CBS Philly by Chelsea Lacey-Mabe
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — We’ve heard the commercials—the ones against the Philly soda tax. The American Beverage Association’s (ABA) No Philly Grocery Tax Coalition believes consumers shouldn’t have to pay the tax to help fund the city’s Universal Pre-K initiative, saying the tax targets the poor and could affect jobs.
Harvard study: Soda tax would make Phila. healthier
Posted on April 29, 2016 | Philly.com by Don Sapatkin
Harvard University researchers are projecting major health benefits if Mayor Kenney's proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is enacted.
Within a few years of the three-cents-an-ounce tax's beginning, they forecast, nearly 2,300 diabetes diagnoses would be prevented annually, and eventually, 36,000 people a year would avoid obesity. Over a decade, about 730 deaths would be averted, and close to $200 million saved in health spending.
Bravo for passing sugar tax
Posted on April 22, 2016 | Saipan Tribune by Jim Krieger, MD, MPH
The Senate should be commended for passing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in an effort to support health in the CNMI. The senators are right to put the target on sugary drinks because overwhelming scientific evidence directly links sugary drinks to the diabetes epidemic.
U.K. SODA TAX MOTIVATES U.S. ADVOCATES
Posted on March 17, 2016 | Politico by Jason Huffman
GM-OPTIMISM IN THE RANKS: Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts’ bill to federally preempt state GMO labeling requirements and save food manufacturers from a patchwork of as many as 50 different state standards failed to secure the 60 votes needed for cloture Wednesday. It wasn’t really close, going down, 48-49. But the agriculture industry isn’t giving up in its effort to secure federal legislation before Vermont’s GMO labeling law goes into effect July 1.