As México’s COVID-19 statistics continue to compile a grim testament of death and sadness, government leaders have wavered on recommending the use of masks, according to media reports.
It has also been reported that Mexico is not conducting wide-scale testing or performing contact tracing for the deadly coronavirus. However, sugary drinks and high-calorie snacks have been targeted, according to Latin Times.
The southern state of Oaxaca banned the sale of both to children after last year's passage of a bill threatened fines to retailers caught selling them. Congresswoman Magaly López Domínguez, the bill's sponsor, said the coronavirus pandemic spurred such action.
Physician and consultant Dr. Xavier Tello says he thinks the government is moving in the wrong direction by claiming the consumption of sugary products can be linked to coronavirus deaths.
“Not directly,” Tello told Mexican Business Daily. “While INSP (National Institute of Public Health of Mexico) researchers try to find correlation between the obesity and COVID mortality rates, there’s not a single piece of direct evidence that links certain amounts of consumption of soft drinks with COVID-related mortality.”
México has some of the worst pandemic statistics in the world. As of Friday, Aug. 21, there had been 543,866 cases reported and 59,105 deaths. Nearly 11% of those diagnosed with the coronavirus are dying.
Mexicans do enjoy sodas and other sugar-laden drinks, consuming an average of 163 liters of soft drinks per person annually, more than any other nation, and 40% more than the average American. El Poder del Consumidor, a consumer advocacy group that has sharply criticized the drinks industry in Mexico, reported that 70% of schoolchildren in a poor region of Guerrero state regularly drink soda for breakfast.
Tello says that it is unfair to link soft drinks to the pandemic, but he knows why it is happening. He believes that Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion Dr. Hugo Lopez-Gatell, an epidemiologist, was looking for a scapegoat.
López-Gatell has referred to pop as “bottled poison” in the media and said that their heavy use in the country is linked to 40,000 deaths annually, exacerbating widespread problems with obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
“Firstly, because they are an easy target,” Tello explained. “The soft drinks industry has been blamed for the obesity and diabetes epidemics in México for more than 10 years; thus, clearly ignoring other factors such as steady lifestyle or the calorie-rich Mexican food. As COVID-19 is out of control in México and we have reached 60,000 deaths, López-Gatell urgently needs someone to blame, and foreign industrialized foods become handy just because they are foreign — mainly American. It is the ‘Yankee’ lifestyle which is killing us.”
Tello says that this campaign has as much to do with politics as it does with prevention.
“Because there are political and ideological motivations behind it, mainly from the left wing,” Tello said. “As explained above, soft drinks are related to foreign companies, so punishing them sounds pretty popular.”
He says that Lopez-Gatell is using this to advance to his career. If he was truly concerned about the rising death toll, he would take other steps.
“He is convinced that exercising power over soft drinks will be considered as a true solution to the current mortality, amongst a huge group of his fans,” Tello said. “Regardless of the poor results controlling the pandemic, López-Gatell’s career is lifting up and he’s been personally groomed by the president for a greater political future.
“Lastly, there is the INSP factor, where the initial sugar tax came from,” Tello continued. “[Lopez-Gatell] is an INSP alumni and he has friends and influence on the researchers who mainly focus on nutrition, from a nationalistic and left-wing perspective.”
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