Taxing sugary drinks in America’s cities could save and extend the lives of millions of Americans while averting vast sums in health costs and raising millions of dollars for local communities, according to an analysis of six adopted and 15 theoretical taxes in America’s largest cities.

After ten years, a tax of one cent per ounce in those 21 jurisdictions would reach 23.5 million people with health benefits including declining rates of diabetes, nearly 60,000 fewer cases of obesity, nearly 4,000 fewer premature deaths, and avoided health care costs of over $1.2 billion. The sugary drink levies would raise nearly $1 billion each year for investment in improving communities and promoting health, according to the report, “Raising revenue, cutting costs, saving lives: The benefits of sugary drink taxes in America’s major cities.”

“Soda taxes are on a big winning streak.” Thus declared a New York Times columnist, summing up November’s stunning run of victories in the Bay Area, Boulder and Cook County, IL. Those wins came months after Philadelphia became just the second U.S. city to tax sugary drinks.

There are several reasons why 2016 became the turning point in the health-driven movement to rein sugary drinks. For one, as I told the Associated Press, the industry playbook by now is predictable, so advocates can anticipate and counter their tactics. This year’s newish twist, an all-out effort to deceive people into seeing the measures as “grocery taxes”, fell as flat as week-old cola. Voters not only weren’t fooled, they sent a strong message with their high levels of support in passing the sugary drink taxes.

Whatever else you think about the momentous events of this month, the adoption of five new sugary drink taxes is a capstone to a year that has seen escalating interest in combatting sugar in order to bring down diabetes, heart disease and other impacts from a broken food system.

As a result of that interest, we find ourselves on the road a lot this fall. I recently talked to folks at the Southern Obesity Summit in Houston about how communities in the South and across the nation are developing strategies to reduce consumption of added sugar. Some of the most promising ones include warning labels and taxes on sugary drinks; limits on sugary products in health care, child care, and government settings and in restaurants; marketing and retailing reforms; and communication campaigns.

Cook County makes soda taxes 5 for 5 this week! Cook County IL joins Boulder and the Bay Area with a yes vote this week on a sugary drink tax. They continued the week’s winning streak for these measures and momentum for the movement builds as the mayor of Santa Fe announced today he will also be pursuing a two-cent tax on sugary drinks. The Cook County Board vote was 9-8 in favor of a one-cent tax on sweetened beverages.  

Voters in Boulder and the Bay Area just said a resounding YES to a tax on sugary drinks. The ballot measures were approved by wide margins yesterday in San Francisco (62% in favor), Oakland (61%), Albany, CA (71%) and Boulder, CO (54%). These four cities join Berkeley, CA, where voters approved the nation’s first tax on sugary drinks in 2014, and Philadelphia, whose mayor and council adopted one in June. 

As we put it in our statement, “Despite the billions spent on marketing and more than $30 million in deceitful campaign ads, voters saw the truth and sent a clear message that their families’ health comes first – thanks to an incredible, neighbor-to-neighbor grassroots campaign led by passionate and effective local advocates and support from Michael Bloomberg and Laura and John Arnold that helped level the playing field.”

SEATTLE, WA – Cook County’s proposed tax on sweetened drinks would extend thousands of lives and reduce diabetes and obesity rates while saving nearly $222 million in healthcare costs over the next decade, researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health have concluded.

To examine the potential health impact of the proposed tax, researchers for Harvard’s CHOICES project localized a national, peer-reviewed computer model to project impacts in Cook County. The model predicts that the tax of one cent per ounce would lead many consumers to shift away from sugary drinks that cause health harms.

As a result of that shift, the incidence of diabetes would drop by an estimated 7 percent when the tax reaches full effect after a few years. The model estimates 37,000 fewer people would be burdened with obesity at the end of 2025 than without the tax.

Reducing the chronic diseases associated with excess sugar and weight gain would cut healthcare costs by $222 million over 10 years in comparison to taking no action. The net savings in obesity-related healthcare would be about 26 times the cost to administer the tax, according to the model.

The county estimates the tax would raise $223 million a year for critical programs and prevent diseases associated with excess sugar consumption.

“This research shows the sweetened drink tax to be a brilliant way to raise vital revenue for the county while saving lives by preventing diabetes and other chronic disease,” said Dr. Jim Krieger, MD, MPH, executive director of Healthy Food America, a leading advocate of health policy. “Cook County’s actions will especially help low-income people and communities of color, who are disproportionately targeted both by the marketing of sugary drinks and the diseases associated with drinking them regularly,” he added.

Communities across the country and world are adopting taxes on sugary drinks – as they have on tobacco – to raise revenue for social and health programs while at the same time discouraging overuse of products linked to obesity, diabetes and heart, liver and dental disease. The World Health Organization on Oct. 11 called for governments to tax sugary drinks as part of the global strategy to combat chronic disease and obesity.

“Our analysis looks beyond revenue and finds that this tax on sweetened drinks can generate significant prevention of new cases of obesity, diabetes, improved quality adjusted life years and healthcare cost savings,” said lead investigator of the CHOICES Project, Dr. Steven Gortmaker, who also serves as the director of the Harvard Prevention Research Center and is a professor of the practice of health sociology at the Chan School of Public Health. “It is our intent that these findings serve as a source of research-based information surrounding potential health impacts of sweetened beverage taxes.”

Find the Harvard CHOICES brief here.

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Healthy Food America acts on scientific evidence to drive change in food policy and industry practice, giving people greater control over their health and reducing diet-related illnesses, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Cook County’s proposed tax on sweetened drinks would extend thousands of lives and reduce diabetes and obesity rates while saving nearly $222 million in healthcare costs over the next decade, researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health have concluded.

To examine the potential health impact of the proposed tax, researchers for Harvard’s CHOICES project localized a national, peer-reviewed computer model to project impacts in Cook County. The model predicts that the tax of one cent per ounce would lead many consumers to shift away from sugary drinks that cause health harms. 

Big Soda’s record-breaking spending to fight soda taxes keeps climbing as we head into the final week before Election Day. Coke, Pepsi and the American Beverage Association have now spent $40 million to protect profits against health-promoting efforts this year, with $28 million going against the ballot measures in San Francisco and Oakland.  

The industry is spending such an extraordinary sum on the Bay Area campaigns because they have nationwide ramifications. As Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson put it, “If there’s a soda tax in San Francisco and/or Oakland, then it will send a signal to cities throughout the state and probably throughout the nation.”

If all four initiatives to tax sugary drinks pass next month it would represent not only an historic loss for Big Soda, but a huge win in terms of lives and dollars saved, according to Harvard research.

Taken together, the three soda tax measures in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Boulder would extend hundreds of lives and cut diabetes and obesity rates while saving more than $60 million in healthcare costs over the next decade, researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health have concluded.

We knew Big Soda was spending big against soda tax measures this year, but the totals are jaw-dropping. Vox put together this graphic showing the astounding amounts Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have spent directly and also indirectly through their American Beverage Association.