A coalition of industry and union interests has filed a petition seeking to enjoin or invalidate the New York City (NYC) Department of Health prohibition on the sale of certain sugar-sweetened beverages in servings exceeding 16 ounces from certain types of business establishments. N.Y. Statewide Coal. of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce v. NYC Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene, No. 653584/2012 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., N.Y. Cty., filed October 12, 2012). The coalition contends that the Board of Health acted beyond its powers in adopting the prohibition and that it is arbitrary and capricious in its design and application. Members of the coalition include trade associations for Korean-American grocers, restaurants, beverage makers, and theater owners, as well as the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a soft drink and brewery workers union local. According to the petition, the rule does not apply to beverages higher in calories than soft drinks, including alcohol-based drinks, wines,…
Tag Archives SSB
A coalition of industry and union interests has filed a petition seeking to enjoin or invalidate the New York City (NYC) Department of Health prohibition on the sale of certain sugar-sweetened beverages in servings exceeding 16 ounces from certain types of business establishments. N.Y. Statewide Coal. of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce v. NYC Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene, No. 653584/2012 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., N.Y. Cty., filed October 12, 2012). The coalition contends that the Board of Health acted beyond its powers in adopting the prohibition and that it is arbitrary and capricious in its design and application. Members of the coalition include trade associations for Korean-American grocers, restaurants, beverage makers, and theater owners, as well as the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a soft drink and brewery workers union local. According to the petition, the rule does not apply to beverages higher in calories than soft drinks, including alcohol-based…
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has published a series of studies and commentary on the purported health effects of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages. The American Beverage Association issued a statement contending that studies focusing “solely on sugar-sweetened beverages” as an alleged cause of obesity “or any single source of calories, do nothing meaningful to help address this serious issue. The fact remains: sugar-sweetened beverages are not driving obesity. By every measure, sugar-sweetened beverages play a small and declining role in the American diet.” The studies included Janne de Ruyter, et al., “A Trial of Sugar-free or Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Body Weight in Children,” (concluding, “[m]asked replacement of sugar-containing beverages with noncaloric beverages reduced weight gain and fat accumulation in normal-weight children.”); Cara Ebbeling, et al., “A Randomized Trial of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Adolescent Body Weight,” (concluding, “[a]mong overweight and obese adolescents, the increase in [body mass index] was smaller…
A federal court in San Francisco has issued a temporary injunction against the city of Richmond, California, to block enforcement of a law requiring campaign mailers to include information about “major funding from large out-of-city contributors.” Cmty. Coal. Against Beverage Taxes v. City of Richmond, No. 12-4545 (N.D. Cal., order entered September 7, 2012). The ordinance calls for committees that spend at least $2,500 on a local ballot proposal campaign to list their top five contributors on each mailer. According to news sources, the city adopted the ordinance in June in the midst of a heated political dispute over a November ballot measure that would, if approved by voters, require local businesses to pay a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on the sales of sugar-sweetened beverages. The Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes, purportedly funded by the American Beverage Association, has apparently spent in excess of $350,000 to defeat the measure, outspending the proposal’s…
The New York City Board of Health has adopted Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recommendation to establish a maximum serving size of 16 ounces for sugar-sweetened, non-alcoholic drinks sold at local food establishments. Board members reportedly voted 8-0 with one abstention, one absence and one vacancy to amend Article 81 of the Health Code to place a size restriction on beverages containing more than 25 calories per eight ounces and all self-service cups offered by food vendors, with exemptions for products that are more than 50 percent milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. Effective March 13, 2013, the new regulations will apply to restaurants, mobile food carts, delis, theater and stadium concessions, and any other food-service business regulated by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which will impose fines of $200 per violation. “Today’s vote is a historic and important step in fighting New York City’s epidemics of…
U.S. Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have reportedly joined the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network and a coalition of federal, state and local public health organizations in urging U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin to investigate the alleged association between sugar-sweetened drinks and rising obesity rates. According to a September 12, 2012, letter, the senators have asked Benjamin to conduct a study that would determine “the impact of sugary drinks on rates of American obesity and whether public health proposals that target sugary beverages will positively impact public health.” “As America’s waistline has expanded, so too has our access to sugary drinks,” states the letter. “Beverages like soda, sports drinks, lemonade, juice drinks, and sweetened teas are cheap and available everywhere. Doctors and public health experts recommend limiting and reducing the consumption of sugary drinks, especially in children, but kids and adults drink twice…
Relying on data provided by a study of more than 60,000 Norwegian women from 1999 to 2008, Swedish and Norwegian researchers have found that a “high intake of both AS [artificially sweetened] and SS [sugar-sweetened] beverages is associated with an increased risk of preterm delivery.” Linda Englund-Ögge, et al., “Association between intake of artificially sweetened and sugar-sweetened beverages and preterm delivery: a large prospective cohort study,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August 2, 2012. The women were asked about servings of carbonated soft drinks and non-carbonated beverages, both AS and SS, per day, week and month, and a serving was defined as 250 mL for all beverages. The groups were divided into AS and SS groups and further divided into intake categories. For women consuming more than one serving per day of AS beverages, the adjusted odds ratio for preterm delivery was 1.11. Consumption of more than one serving of…
A recent study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has reportedly registered a significant decrease in the availability of soft drinks in secondary schools but “widespread access to other sugary beverages, such as fruit drinks and sport drinks.” Yvonne Terry McElrath, et al., “Trends in Competitive Venue Beverage Availability: Findings From US Secondary School,” Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, August 2012. After surveying the availability of competitive beverages in 1,900 public middle and high schools from 2006-07 to 2010-11, researchers with the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research reported that the percentage of high school students with access to regular soda fell to 25 percent in 2010-11 from 54 percent in 2006-07, while the percentage of middle schoolers with access to regular soda declined to 13 percent in 2010-11, down from 27 percent in 2006-07. At the same time, however, the survey purportedly revealed that 63 percent of…
Suggesting that soft drinks are associated with “addictive mechanisms,” a coalition of nearly 100 federal, state and local public health organizations and individuals have added their voices to the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network’s, urging the U.S. Surgeon General to “prepare a Report on the health effects of sugary drinks and to issue a Call to Action so spur national efforts to reduce sugary drink consumption.” Further details on the Network’s letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appear in Issue 446 of this Update. Citing risks to young people’s health and national security interests, the latest correspondence claims that sugary drinks “have become a routine, daily beverage for tens of millions of Americans” and they are “aggressively marketed, especially to young consumers and minorities, in both traditional and digital media, and in event sponsorships.” The July 19, 2012, letter suggests that a Surgeon…
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) has sent a July 3, 2012, letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, asking the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office to issue a report “that examines how the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages impacts the health of Americans.” Noting that the 2012 Cancer Prevention Guidelines stress the importance of a healthy diet and weight in reducing “one’s lifetime risk of developing or dying from cancer,” ACS CAN has called for an “articulate, science-based and comprehensive national plan of action” to combat rising obesity rates. “We know there is a direct link between excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity, and the adverse health effect can be profound in children as they grow into adults and throughout their lives,” states the letter. “As was the case in 1964, when the Surgeon General first revealed to the broad American public…
