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 Some countries, such as Mexico, France and Britain, are already
taxing sugary drinks and the WHO made a non-binding recommendation
in October 2016 that governments should impose a 20 percent tax.
While this was called "discriminatory" and "unproven" by the
industry, activists had hoped for a strong endorsement from the
panel, which includes heads of states and health ministers.
The panel on Friday called on governments to increase efforts to
fight an explosive epidemic of non-communicable diseases in low and
middle income countries which account for 71 percent of all deaths
globally, or 41 million deaths a year.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus established the WHO
Independent High-Level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases last
year to provide advice on how to reduce premature deaths from such
diseases by one-third by 2030.
To achieve progress, "governments should work with: food and
non-alcoholic beverage companies in areas such as reformulation,
labeling, and regulating marketing", its report, which goes to a
United Nations summit in September, said.
The commission made six recommendations in its report, including for
government heads to take responsibility for disease reduction and to
increase regulation. It did not mention taxes specifically.
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The panel said that its 21 members represented "rich and diverse
views", but that some views were "conflicting".
As a result, it said recommendations around sugar taxes and the
accountability of the private sector could not be reflected in the
report, despite broad support from many commissioners.
A WHO spokesman told Reuters that the report was from an independent
commission, not the WHO, which he said still sees the benefits of
using taxes to reduce consumption of harmful products including
sugary drinks.
Britain's sugar tax on soft drinks came into effect in April and led
manufacturers to reformulate their products beforehand to be below
the levy's sugar threshold.
France and Hungary have imposed taxes on drinks with added sugar,
while Ireland gained EU approval in April.
(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay; additional reporting by
Martinne Geller in London; editing by Alexander Smith)
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