The outgoing Cabinet has developed five possible variants of a sugar tax that can be levied on non-alcoholic soft drinks. The aim is to make drinks with little or no sugar cheaper, like diet sodas and oat milk. Other drinks with a great deal of sugar, like Red Bull, would become more expensive.This should help in the fight against obesity, the Cabinet believes. It will be up to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, to choose from those variants, an adapted version, or to reject them outright.
More than 50 people have been diagnosed with measles in an ongoing outbreak, and the per capita rate of whooping cough infections among young children is soaring. Politicians debated the issue of declining vaccination rates in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, on Thursday. Vaccination rates have dipped below key levels necessary to keep preventable infections at bay.The amount of measles cases is seven times more than the whole of 2023. The health institute RIVM is worried about the declining vaccination rates.
In the Netherlands, an estimated 30,600 people between 18 and 65 had no roof over their heads last year. That is more than in 2022, when an estimated 26,600 people in that age category were homeless. Still, due to uncertainty margins, it is too early to speak of an increase, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported. “Since 2018, the number of homeless people between 18 and 65 continually declined,” said CBS researcher Tanja Traag. “You can at least say that decline has now stopped or that the number of homeless people has stabilized.”
The government’s plans to cut another 500 million euros from the youth care budget are “draconian” and irresponsible, according to State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen of Public Health. All cost savings measures that can reasonably be taken in youth care are already being implemented, he told NOS ahead of a parliamentary debate on the youth care budget.