• She Took On Colombia’s Soda Industry. Then She Was Silenced. - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/health/colombia-soda-tax-obesity.html

    “If you don’t keep your mouth shut,” one man shouted, she recalled in a recent interview, “you know what the consequences will be.”

    The episode, which Dr. Cerón reported to federal investigators, was reminiscent of the intimidation often used against those who challenged the drug cartels that once dominated Colombia. But the narcotics trade was not the target of Dr. Cerón and her colleagues. Their work had upset a different multibillion-dollar industry: the makers of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

    Their organization, Educar Consumidores, was the most visible proponent of a proposed 20 percent tax on sugary drinks that was heading for a vote that month in Colombia’s Legislature. The group had raised money, rallied allies to the cause and produced a provocative television ad that warned consumers how sugar-laden beverages can lead to obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes.

    “The industry sees sugary-drink taxes as an existential threat,” said Dr. James Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America, which tracks beverage tax initiatives. In the United States, the industry has spent at least $107 million at the state and local levels since 2009 to beat back soda taxes and beverage warning labels, a new study found. Compared to the domestic tactics, Dr. Krieger said, overseas, “it’s much dirtier, much more bare-knuckled.”

    The beverage industry asserts that soda taxes unfairly burden the poor, cause higher unemployment by squeezing industry sales, and fail to achieve their policy goal: reducing obesity. Studies of soda taxes have shown they lead to a drop in sales of sugar-sweetened beverages — a 10 percent sales decline, for example, over the first two years of Mexico’s tax — however, such measures are so new that there is not yet evidence of their impact on health.

    “Slapping a tax on our products and walking away won’t do anything about obesity in this country or globally,” said William Dermody, spokesman for the American Beverage Association, an industry trade group.

    But public health organizations, including the W.H.O., cite soda taxes as one of the most effective policy tools for cutting consumption of what nutritionists call a “liquid candy” that has contributed to an epidemic of obesity and related health conditions around the world. Dr. Kathryn Backholer, an expert on the issue at Deakin University in Australia, said taxes on soda were “low-hanging fruit” in the fight against obesity, diabetes and other weight-related diseases because such drinks are easily categorized to tax and sensible to target because they “have little or no nutritional value.”

    “In Colombia, the sugar industry and the main media companies belong to the same economic conglomerates,” Mr. Gaviria, the health minister, said. “They have an intimidating power. And they used it.”

    That fall, at least 90 lobbyists worked to sway legislators, according to a tally of visitor logs obtained by Educar Consumidores. During committee hearings on the measure, lobbyists often sat next to lawmakers, a flagrant violation of congressional rules, said Óscar Ospina Quintero, a legislator from the Green Alliance party. Mr. Ospina said he protested the lobbyists’ presence in the chamber but was rebuffed by congressional leaders.

    “The response was fierce,” Mr. Gaviria said. “I remember that, during one of the debates, a senator said to me: ‘In all my years in Congress I’ve never seen a lobbying effort like this.’”

    Toute la suite est effrayante : intimidation, virus informatiques, pression, lobbies. Le sucre n’est pas doux.

    #Sucre #Obésité #Soda #Colombie #Médias

  • She Took On Colombia’s Soda Industry. Then She Was Silenced. - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/health/colombia-soda-tax-obesity.html

    Then at dusk one day last December, Dr. Esperanza Cerón, the head of the organization, said she noticed two strange men on motorcycles trailing her Chevy sedan as she headed home from work. She tried to lose them in Bogotá’s rush-hour traffic, but they edged up to her car and pounded on the windows.

    “If you don’t keep your mouth shut,” one man shouted, she recalled in a recent interview, “you know what the consequences will be.”

    The episode, which Dr. Cerón reported to federal investigators, was reminiscent of the intimidation often used against those who challenged the drug cartels that once dominated Colombia. But the narcotics trade was not the target of Dr. Cerón and her colleagues. Their work had upset a different multibillion-dollar industry: the makers of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

    #sodas #multinationales #mafia #sucre #obésité