• 
• 
  • Arts & Culture
  • City Hall
  • Environment
  • Housing & Displacement
  • Immigrant Rights
  • LGBQT
  • Poverty
  • Youth & Schools
• 
  • Features
  • News Briefs
  • Newswire
  • Headlines
• 
  • Mailing Lists
  • PhillyIMC's Wiki
  • LAVA
  • Contact us
• 
• 
• 
• 

All bad laws are wrapped in noble rhetoric.

  Sure, it's a good idea to go easy on junk drinks, for a lot of reasons.
1)  Too much sugar in any food or beverage is harmful.  Humans are just not designed for overdoses of sugar.    (Re-read "Sugar Blues".)
2)  Artificial sweeteners have been indicted for many negative effects.
3)  The drinks are invariably mostly water and are priced hugely above their "value".
4)  The packaging waste is rarely recyclable and it litters streets and sidewalks, clogs sewers, and costs taxpayers a lot to dispose of.
5)  And who wants to support horrific anti-labor terrorism of Killer-Coke, or the historic anti-Cuban policies of PepsiCo ?

However....regarding this "tax" "solution"....

a)  It is a regressive tax that will excessively burden low-income people, and have minimal if any effect on those with higher incomes.  If any tax is determined to be in the Public Interest, it must be the entire public that pays it, as a proper portion of income taxes. 

b) Taxes on just one segment of society, be they soda drinkers, smokers, bar patrons,, etc., fracture society, unfairly focus on powerless and unpopular minorities, and guarantee that those "without a dog in this fight" will support the taxes or ignore the issue altogether.

c)  It is yet another cost dumped onto the public in order to protect wealthy businesses and individuals from having to pay a fair share of income taxes.

d)   The tax is arbitrary, ignoring hosts of other products that may contain as much,  or more, fattening substances as any sodas.  Arbitrary law is automatically illegitimate law.

e)  It burdens the victims while doing nothing to address the beverage manufacturers and their ingredient suppliers.  
--- No laws are passed to limit advertising---even deceptive advertising;
--- no laws are passed to restrict the artificial sweeteners that turn consumers into Guinea pigs;
--- no laws are passed to require re-cycleable drink containers; no government subsidies are granted to the healthful beverage industry;
--- there is not even a City Council resolution to ask local health insurers, and other institutions, to divest from their holdings in the soda industry or its suppliers;
--- and perhaps most despicably, not a thing is done or a word spoken about Endocrine Disrupting chemicals' (pesticides, chlorine, certain plastics, dioxins) role in causing obesity.    There's no two-cents-an-ounce tax on pesticides even though they are responsible for far more health problems than obesity.
See:   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18315718   for starters.

 If a Public Health Commissioner doesn't know about that, he has apparently been insufficiently-trained, and acquired his position prematurely.
 If he does know about that, but remains silent, we have another serious problem perhaps relating to a dangerous lack of human empathy, or, same thing, but with relationships with the plastics, pesticides (including those made by pharmaceuticals), chlorine, etc., industries...and/or their insurers or investors.

  It is all too likely that the Health Commissioner will not even suggest testing obese patients for body-burdens of those endocrine-disrupting substances.    For the sake of the above-mentioned industries, it is best to blame and penalize the victims, an all too common practice in this expanding, intensifying Corporatocracy.

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

As part of a comprehensive program to combat obesity in the city of Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter has proposed a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages beginning in fiscal year 2011. This tax will raise millions of dollars in revenue for the City each year and provide significant annual funding to the Department of Public Health to help prevent obesity.

On Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Health Commissioner Donald Schwarz will testify about this important public health initiative. The hearing will begin at 10:00 am in room 400 in City Hall. Members of the public are invited to attend.

Like the rest of the nation, Philadelphians struggle with obesity and being overweight.
From 2000 to 2008, adult obesity has increased from 25% to 29%; childhood obesity has increased from 24% to 28% among children 6-17 years of age. In Philadelphia in 2008, 64% of adults and 57% of children between 6 and 11 were overweight or obese. Geographic and racial-ethnic disparities are significant. In Philadelphia in 2008, Blacks and Latinos had significantly higher rates of obesity than Whites. In predominantly African-American and Latino Upper North Philadelphia, nearly 70% of children are overweight or obese.

Why reduce drinking sugar-sweetened beverages?

• Many studies have shown a link between drinking sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and obesity.
• SSBs are empty calories with no nutritional value. SSBs do not make people feel full, so they end up drinking more calories than they need.
• Sweet beverages can change children’s taste preferences for the rest of their lives, causing less sweet, healthier foods to be unappealing.
• If Philadelphians were to replace sugar-sweetened beverages with water twice a week, they would save over $40 and lose 7 pounds per person per year and, as a family, would lose nearly 24 pounds per year. If the same family cut back its consumption of SSBs to 3 days per week, it would lose 47 pounds and save $77 per year.

With revenue raised by the sugar-sweetened beverage tax, the Department of Public Health hopes to make healthy foods more available to Philadelphians; decrease the availability and consumption of unhealthy foods; and promote physical activity in daily living through a variety of new programs. Without this revenue important public health services may need to be cut.

For more information, please visit www.phila.gov/ health.

Best wishes,

Donald F. Schwarz, MD, MPH
Health Commissioner
Philadelphia Department of Public Health