Alcohol cancer warnings - why?

Interesting article in The Drinks Business about alcohol cancer labels...

 

“Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s tobacco control was consuming enormous public health resources,” says Dr Creina Stockley, co-director of the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research. But that began to change once smoking was banned in enclosed public spaces, following Ireland’s lead in 2004. Before long there were plenty of scientists, lobbyists and NGOs in need of a new purpose in life.

The direction of travel was obvious. As Sir Liam Donaldson, England’s then chief medical officer, told the Daily Telegraph under a headline, ‘Fat Binge Drinkers Beware’, in 2007: “Tobacco is a good example of a health problem that is in hand, but when we turn to obesity and alcohol misuse, those are not yet anywhere under control.”

 

My question about alcohol health warnings has always been why, if you think people are uninformed about the risks, would you focus on a relatively small number of mostly rare cancers when liver disease is by far the biggest cause of alcohol-related mortality?

 

The answer is that they are copying the anti-smoking blueprint.

 

“If you do your research most of the guys now doing alcohol, came from tobacco, and that’s in every country,” says Stockley. Having run what has been called ‘one of the most successful social change campaigns’ against smoking, it was only natural to apply the same tactics to drink given the links to cancer. Clearly part of that is to insist on cancer labels.

 

Dr Stockley gets it.

 

“If the goal is informed consumer choice, modest labels may be sufficient,” says Dr Stockley. “If the goal is measurable reductions in drinking, the historical trajectory of tobacco control suggests continual pressure for larger, more prominent, and potentially graphic warnings. I consider that distinction may become a central debate in alcohol policy over the next decade.” 

 

Me too. If we've learned anything from tobacco control is that it goes on forever, or until the product is banned entirely. 

Share

Tweet