Health Groups Champion Soft Drink Warnings
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has published a January 3, 2011, letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg that calls for health warnings on sugar-sweetened beverages. Signed by the American Public Health Association, California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Trust for America’s Health, and other groups, the letter asks FDA to require the use of warning labels on “all beverages with more than 1.1 grams of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or other added caloric sweeteners per ounce.”
Building on a 2005 CSPI petition, the signatories specifically cite “overwhelming evidence linking consumption of soft drinks to serious diseases.” They recommend that the agency use its “ample legal authority” under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require warning labels such as (i) “The U.S. Government recommends that you drink fewer sugary drinks to prevent weight gain, tooth decay, heart disease and diabetes”; (ii) “Drinking too many sugary drinks can promote diabetes and heart disease”; (iii) “For better health, the U.S. Government recommends that you limit your consumption of sugary drinks”; (iv) “This drink contains 250 calories. Consider switching to water.”
“Although by no means a cure for America’s obesity problem, warning labels are a standard public health tool that has been effectively used to raise public awareness of the hazards of tobacco use and the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages,” states the letter, which claims that sugar-sweetened beverages “have been directly linked to obesity, a major contributor to coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer.” See CSPI Press Release, January 3, 2011.
