Dr. Urhle Says no To Tax on Bottled Water

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The head of the Veterans Affairs Clinic in American Samoa, Dr. Fred Urhle, recommends that the legislature reject a bill that slaps a tax on imported bottled water.

He says the tax will be counter productive to efforts to reverse the growing rate of obesity and other lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease..

A House bill pending in committee would slap a 5% excise tax on bottled water with the proceeds earmarked to upgrade the site of a waterfall in Leone that was once a tourist attraction.

A US doctor who has studied the weight of Samoans here, Samoa, and Samoan communities in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, Dr. Stephen McGarvey has published key findings of his studies in a leading medical journal, in the United Kingdom.

Dr. McGarvey writes in -The Lancet – the average Samoan’s weight has shot up — and health declined — so steeply that these islands have caught the attention of epidemiologists around the world.

In American Samoa, one in every three people suffers from diabetes.

Dr. Urhle agrees with Dr. McGarvey’s findings and suggests that strong public education is necessary to reverse the runaway incidence of NCDs in the two Samoa.

He recommends a return to a traditional diet instead of the fatty imported food that our people have become accustomed to.

According to Dr. Urhle, drinking water instead of soda should be promoted and he strongly recommends that the Fono not pass the tax on water.
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