passing soft drinks and making the rounds in washington patrician an
economic experts suggest a tax of one penny on every outs of soda and other
sugar sweetened drinks
and report and the new england journal of medicine this week states that this
is an important element in the fight against obesity and diabetes but as you
can see from that and i a lot of groups now thinking you should be
salve joining me to make rounds from new haven
the kelly-frye now she's the director of the universities right center for food
policy in a b city
and she is the lead author of that report in the new england journal
and here is the it thirty rock elizabeth wheatland she's president
and founder of the american council
on science and health i'm sorry can't incumbent
kelly admired by apologizing risking your issue and i know you're a key
ob would you explain to me it's a very well-written article and frankly it's
hard to punch holes in it because you lay out the the finances quite well
but explained to me why you think this is a scientific argument
well the last thing
you want to have is a new tax
but in some cases it might be justified we believe in this case it is for the
following reasons
the research on showing a link between sugar beverage consumption and diseases
like obesity and diabetes is absolutely iron-clad early studies for the most
part the don't agree with that or once funded by the industry
sakin is that the cost for these diseases are borne by everybody because
about half the cost for two dealing with obesity which is an enormous cost
are are borne by medicare and medicaid so course we'll pay for that so very
much like tobacco were we decided as a society that attacks would help do two
things generate a lot of revenue but also decrease consumption of the product
we believe the same model applies here was sugar beverage and then we went
through a couple of the statistics are in the lease the finances one cents per
one alice tax
would raise fourteen point nine billion dollars in just the first year in his
house crates if your move-in date you're out shopping
if you buy a true leader bottle of anything the cost would jump from a
dollar thirty five to two dollars and three cents a-twelve alex can we go from
i'd if you've got to add pack of the trial and scans three dollars and twenty
cents to four dollars and sixty four cents
elizabeth i mean
what a wonderful way for a lot of people
to say that's fine health care
the exactly this is very misguided effort in terms of dealing with the
peace and quiet
obesity is a very serious medical problem as you know there are enormous
health consequences of being overweight and obesity and we have to purchase
scientifically we know what makes people of these over ingestion of calories and
under arab under use of exercise options but to that regarded instead do this tax
and that the average person consumes a hundred and seventy five calories a day
from solitary some well first of all i think it's absolutely absurd to zero in
on one type of food or beverage as a cause of obesity we have to look at the
broad picture
you know in terms of the above so those people who want to watch their calories
they have the option of diet soda
but to take away in basically the tax his tax is going to hit poor people
particularly hard offer a treat are something that they may have
occasionally and that they can accommodate in terms of their daily
caloric intake is really misguided you know this only expression that for every
complex problem here's a simple solution and it never works so here we have a
very complex problem a simple solution taxing sewed up
no ways of anne-marie a chilly it is a regressive tax of it it was going to
argue about that
well this is all this is the same history with tobacco being played out in
groups like the one we just heard from
funded by the industry will make arguments in favor of the status quo so
that's pretty understandable another aggressive nature of attacks though
really is a legitimate question
i respond in the following way first obesity and diabetes are regressive
diseases they've hurt the poor the most and then second if the revenue that's
generated by a tax goes back into those communities it could be a great help
sugar beverages are not necessary for survival people have died drinks they
have fruit uh... fruit juices to pull from more and of course the low-cost
option of of the mall is water
and so we believe that attacks would drive down consumption of the un
healthier beverages push up consumption of the the better ones and overall you
have a significant public health impact not going to solve the obesity problem
by any one thing nobody claims out to be the case but you've gotta start
somewhere in this argument that you don't want to take on any one food
basically paralyzes you from doing anything you know i'd like to correct
first of all i did
the run
through the guest we are not representing the industry we are
representing
there's a lot of four hundred scientists who've come together to reach and
scientific a consensus on subjects you know if it is just not useful thing to
do we have to approach the scientifically and not labelled foods is
good foods or bad foods wherefore you know b c oriented foods look across the
entire spectrum of the calories you're ingesting and on that note we'll have to
end it there it was between nine and kelly brownell thank you so much before
but i'd like to have at fifteen billion dollars to sink into health care
bansal tempting i appreciate you know i really did enjoy the article very very
very well done thank you both and up