Fat-tax plan to reduce disease

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Beef burgers and creamy milkshakes could hit New Zealanders' hip-pockets as hard as their waistlines if policymakers swallow a "fat-tax" proposal from doctors.

The GPs want a tax slapped on foods containing saturated fats, to reduce the country's high death rate from heart disease.

Saturated fats come mostly from animal-based foods, including meat, butter, cheese, and full-cream and blue-top milk.

Health Minister Annette King, farmers and meat processors yesterday gave the idea, floated in the Medical Journal, a cool reception.

In a journal letter, Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Osman Mansoor said educational programmes had proved ineffective in preventing heart disease.

"The public health community seems reluctant to learn the lessons from the history of tobacco and alcohol control in New Zealand: price is a key factor affecting behaviour.

"A tax, applied at source, on the saturated fat content of manufactured meat and dairy products seems feasible. Such a tax would benefit the health of New Zealanders in terms of reduced heart disease, stroke, obesity and the adverse outcomes from diabetes."

A reply from Heart Foundation medical adviser Dr Boyd Swinburn and the Auckland Medical School's Dr Murray Laugeson said the tax was worth considering. Another approach would be a GST exemption or subsidies for fruit and vegetables.

While the letters did not cover the value of any tax, British research suggests that the scheme could save an estimated 50 lives a year here.

In China, a 10 per cent rise in the price of pork led to daily fat intake falling by 11 per cent among the poor and 5 per cent among the rich.

New Zealand has one of the worse death rates for heart disease of Western countries.

Dr Laugeson said a tax at abattoirs and dairy factories would capture 80 per cent of saturated fat eaten.

"The main purpose, to start with, would be educational. Just a small tax would have an enormous effect at the supermarket counter where butter and margarine are running neck and neck in price.

"It would give a slight edge to margarine, which would have dairy farmers very worried but would probably have a very important and fairly rapid effect on heart disease."

Mrs King said a fat tax was "not on my horizon."

Federated Farmers national president Alistair Polson said the tax would be costly to implement and could lead to poor nutrition for young people.

The chief executive of the Richmond meat company, John Loughlin, said to be fair, similar taxes would have to be applied for other negative food attributes, such as cancer-causing potential.