Food and beverage industry interference in science and policy: efforts to block soda tax implementation in Mexico and prevent international diffusion

Mexico is the largest soft drink market in the world, with high rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Due to strains on the nation’s productivity and healthcare spending, Mexican lawmakers implemented one of the world’s first public health taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in 2014. Because Mexico’s tax was designed to reduce SSB consumption, it faced strong opposition from transnational food and beverage corporations. We analysed previously secret internal industry documents from major corporations in the University of California San Francisco’s Food Industry Documents Archive that shed light on the industry response to the Mexican soda tax. We also reviewed all available studies of the Mexican soda tax’s effectiveness, contrasting the results of industry-funded and non-industry-funded studies. We found that food and beverage industry trade organisations and front groups paid scientists to produce research suggesting that the tax failed to achieve health benefits while harming the economy. These results were disseminated before non-industry-funded studies could be finalized in peer review. Mexico still provided a real-world context for the first independent peer-reviewed studies documenting the effectiveness of soda taxation—studies that were ultimately promoted by the global health community. We conclude that the case of the Mexican soda tax shows that industry resistance can persist well after new policies have become law as vested interests seek to roll back legislation, and to stall or prevent policy diffusion. It also underscores the decisive role that conflict-of-interest-free, peer-reviewed research can play in implementing health policy innovations.

Market heterogeneity and the distributional incidence of soft-drink taxes: evidence from France

Market heterogeneity may affect the distributional incidence of nutritional taxes if households sort by income across markets with different characteristics. We use scanner data to analyse the distributional incidence of the 2012 French soda tax on Exact Price Indices that measure consumer welfare from the price and availability of soft-drinks at a local level. While the average pass-through was small—about 45 per cent—, tax incidence was significantly higher in low-income and less-competitive markets. Market heterogeneity ultimately has substantial distributional effects: it accounts for at least 33 per cent of the difference in welfare variation between low- and high-income consumers.

Eat This! How Fast-Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (and How to Fight Back) by A. Curtis

Curtis, Andrea. Eat This! How Fast-Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (and How to Fight Back). Illustrated by Peggy Collins. Red Deer Press, 2018. Andrea Curtis’s first children’s book was What’s for Lunch? What school children Eat around the World, and her latest book Eat This!: How fast Food marketing gets you to buy junk (and how to fight back) is written for the modern family. It talks about product placement, ads on the internet, the all-natural myth of orange juice and more. Even though this book is word-heavy (there is a glossary) there are bright colourful pictures, by Peggy Collins, accompanying almost every page. However, they cannot show the advertising of the actual products they want to talk about. So a box of frosted flakes becomes sugar rings with a tiger mascot, and any clown can represent McDonald's. Intermittently, it has real-world examples of people fighting fast-food marketing around the world. For example, the Game Changer campaign in Australia, which focuses on the ads in cricket for junk food, alcohol, and gambling. At the end of the book, there is a list of things to try to challenge fast food and marketing strategies. Their goal is to get the reader engaged with what they have just read, offering examples such as potlucks that celebrate diversity, or observing your favourite show for product placement. There are also multiple facts sprinkled into the book like how part of Philadelphia's soda tax is used for improving parks, or how Peru has banned junk food in schools. Overall the book discusses an important topic that is all too relevant in the age of the internet. Better yet, its goal is getting children to engage with advertising in a critical way. Children will benefit from the book, as it explains how advertisers don’t always have our best interests at heart and can help open a dialogue with adults on the subject. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Kaia MacLeod Kaia MacLeod, a member of the James Smith Cree Nation, is an MLIS candidate at the University of Alberta. Her bachelor’s degree was in Film Studies, which she sometimes likes to call a degree in “movie watching,” she enjoys exploring how folklore is represented on film and in online content.

Policy Process And Non-State Actors’ Influence On The 2014 Mexican Soda Tax

In January 2014, Mexico introduced a soda tax of 1 Mexican Peso (MXP) per litre. The aim of this paper is to examine the political context out of which this policy emerged, the main drivers for the policy change, and the role of stakeholders in setting the policy agenda and shaping the policy design and outcomes. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders, and 145 documents, including peer-reviewed papers, policy briefs, press releases, industry, government, and CSO reports, were analysed. An iterative thematic analysis was conducted based on relevant theories of the policy process using a complementary approach, including Stages Heuristic Model, Policy Triangle Framework, and Multiple Streams Model. Results showed that a major motivation was the new administration seeking funds as they entered government. The soda tax was supported by a key group of legislators, civil society actors and by academics promoting evidence on health effects. However, the policy measure was challenged by the food and beverage industries (F&BI). Non-state actors were both formally and informally involved in setting the agenda, regardless of some of them having opposing interests on the soda tax policy. Approaches used by non-state actors to influence the agenda included: calls for action, marketing strategies, coalition building, challenging evidence, and engaging in public–private partnerships (PPPs). The effectiveness of the soda tax was highly debated and resulted in public polarization, although the framing of the outcomes was instrumental in influencing fiscal policies elsewhere. This study contributes to the debate around implementing fiscal policies for health and how power is exercised and framed in the agenda-setting phase of policy development. The article examines how the F&BI sought to influence the national strategy for obesity prevention. It argues that the experience of the soda tax campaign empowered policy advocates, strengthening national and international civil society networks.

The Partisan Divide over a Soda Tax

This chapter looks at research which examined public health messaging in the context of partisan responses to a public health initiative—a sugary drink tax. The tax is controversial, facing opposition fueled and funded by the soda industry. The study then measured the effect of three messaging tactics. The pro-tax approach conveyed the message that sugary drinks should be taxed because they contribute to obesity. The two-sided message stated that sugary drinks cause obesity, but taxes will not help to reduce it. The refutation message said that soda companies are promoting anti-tax sentiment for their own gain, even though soda contributes to obesity. The refutation message resulted in the largest difference of opinion about soda taxes for Democrats and Independents, in contrast to Republicans—who were not influenced by negative messaging about company motives. No significant political party difference was observed for the pro-tax message, and the two-sided message reduced support from all parties. The chapter then suggests that perhaps it is time to look outside the conventional arguments when policymakers attempt to pass soda taxes.