GEORGE: The National Hispanic (NH) Chamber of Commerce is part of a coalition going toe-to-toe with the penny-per-ounce tax proposal. Within weeks of Chicago Ald. George Cardenas’ proposal of a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks, the soda industry shot back with testimonials from a coalition that opposes Cardenas’ idea.
And among the coalition members is the National Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which receives soda industry money. Omar Duque leads the chamber and says its members would be “adversely affected by the tax” because it would drive soda sales down. But that’s exactly why Esther Sciammerella of the Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition supports a tax.
“We see the increases in obesity in children and adults in the Hispanic community, and the issue of diabetes and metabolic syndrome has become epidemic,” she said. “So we advocate drinking water, not soda.”The proposed tax on sugary drinks would fund obesity prevention programs, but the Chicago Coalition against Beverage Taxes says soda taxes don’t better public health. Duque says he recognizes that Latinos suffer from high levels of sugar related disease.
But doesn’t think a local soda tax which builds on other sugar taxes already in place would help.As evidence, he cites taxes on sugary beverages in Arkansas and West Virginia, which have some of the highest obesity rates in the nation. But Elissa Bassler of the Illinois Public Health Institute which is also backing a state soda tax to fund Medicaid believes the comparison is inappropriate.
