The Alcohol Industry Is Trying To Cover Up The Risk Of Cancer
Remember many years ago when Big Tobacco point blank refused to admit that cigarette smoking caused cancer.
They lied to the nation out of pure greed and narcissism. Big tobacco knowingly sold (and still sells) a product that has been proven to kill its customers.
Now the alcohol industry seems to be set to repeat the same mistakes, all in the name of a quick buck.
Canada did something pretty amazing!
A Canadian town started labeling alcohol with the sort of hard-core warning labels that you see on cigarette packages. The alcohol industry didn’t like it!
A few weeks after slapping brilliant blood-red and yellow cancer labels on bottles of wine, whiskey and other spirits, late last year. Employees at the government-run alcohol outlet in Whitehorse, Canada, took them all off again.
“Drinking may cause tumors,” it said in big red letters on the stickers. This was a part of a government-funded pilot to see if they could reduce dangerous drinking.
They rapidly attracted angry telephone calls and emails from the fat cats at a few of the planet’s biggest alcohol manufacturers. Big alcohol grumbled that the Yukon federal government had transgressed the rules.
Whitehorse, a town with only 23,000 inhabitants, is currently at the center of a decade-old battle over warning labels on booze.
The battle for the truth
The fight, which pits the alcoholic beverages sector versus alcohol specialists, doctors, and several public-policy creators, has erupted lately as the link between several forms of cancer and drinking get put under the spotlight once again.
The drinks manufacturers quietly recognize the connection between alcohol consumption and numerous kinds of malignant tumors. That said, it also states that drinking in small amounts may be a health benefit. Something that has recently been proven to be false by an exhaustive study of nearly 600,000 people.
Big alcohol has claimed labeling which blurts out the risk of cancer is scaremongering and may be difficult to understand. Although what’s confusing about ‘ALCOHOL CAUSES CANCER’ is difficult to grasp.
Legislators disagree.
In The Republic Of Ireland, the country’s house of representatives authorized laws in December calling for cancer notices on all alcoholic drinks.
Patricia Callan, supervisor of the Alcohol Drink Alliance of Ireland, an alcohol trade sector body, states the modification requiring the cancer tags was hurried through.
Big alcohol wants this overturned ASAP.
Yes, you read that correctly. Big alcohol wants the cancer warning labels removed.
Does any of this sound like what we saw with the tobacco companies all those years ago?
Last week, the UNITED KINGDOM Royal Society for Public Health, a health-education, not-for-profit, asked for ‘Risk Of Cancer’ alerts to be featured on booze labels in Britain.
Alcoholic drinks representatives, the Portman Group, claimed expert analysis demonstrated “very little enthusiasm from the public for an extreme revamp of alcohol labeling and solid opposition to stuffing more jargon” onto bottles.
The organization recognizes connections in between drinking and several kinds of cancer, but has stated that “various degrees of alcohol use have a variety of impacts on the chance of getting cancer.”
Bullying tactics
The state of California is trying to strengthen decades-old guidelines that caution about the risk of cancer from a multitude of consumer goods. Including cat litter, some food additives, and yes, booze. The jurisdiction’s Proposal 65, that successfully passed in the mid 80’s, called for warning tags to be placed on a lot of these goods.
Alcohol managed to ‘secure’ an exemption.
Rather than warning stickers on wine bottles, signs forewarning of the risk of cancer was mandated to be placed instead in alcohol outlets and dining establishments that sell the stuff. Right now, the California administration is calling for the billboards to also carry a web page URL, directing people to more information regarding the danger getting cancer from drinking.
Big alcohol claims that it is not their job to educate people.
The World Health Organization branded drinking a health hazard and formal cancer risk in the late 80’s. Dealing with the risk of cancer became part of a government labeling initiative suggested in 1986 in the United States, however, it was discarded after industry lobbying.
Right now, government guidelines necessitate only the United States Surgeon General’s precaution against DUI and drinking alcohol during pregnancy. In addition to a basic notice that drinking “could lead to serious health issues.”
Alcohol causes cancer but people are trying to cover it up
But a plethora of new global reports and health-policy shifts has thrown the risk of cancer from drinking back into the public eye. In December, the United States Society of Medical Oncology cautioned that even “moderate use of drinking could raise the danger of developing cancer.”
Last week, a report released in ‘Nature’ pinpointed acetaldehyde as crucial to the connection between alcohol consumption and malignant tumors. The compound is generated when the body degrades alcohol to a supposedly less toxic substance.
The UNITED KINGDOM leading physician, similar to the surgeon general in the United States, has cautioned that even moderate drinking elevates the danger of cancer.
No safe amount of drinking
Erin Hobin, a researcher at Epidemiology Ontario, the Canadian district’s health and wellness ministry, and an analyst on the Yukon project, stated the labeling report was created to try and find out if warning stickers might raise understanding of the risk of cancer.
Scientists from the Victoria University and Public Health Ontario got financing of just over half a million dollars for the Yukon tags from Canada’s national health and wellness department.
Fighting to remove the warnings
Right after they began in December, Jan Westcott, head of Spirits Canada, a trade body of alcohol companies, stated he contacted us to make a complaint. Beer Canada, whose registered members include Coors, and Vintners Canada, a winemaker’ business, participated in the antagonism.
“A lot of scientists are now certain that drinking is just as harmful as cigarette smoking,” stated Mr. Westcott. “We do not agree.”
John Streicker, in charge of the alcohol store in the spotlight, claimed: “the information we placed there on the bottles was based upon clinical proof.”
We are looking for a trade-off in meeting with industry reps, he stated.
In the meantime, though, he stated the authorities cannot pay for any expensive lawsuits that may come from a drawn-out dispute and he has zero plans of reactivating the labeling.
Big Alcohol won!
A promising experiment to highlight the risk of cancer caused by alcohol has been successfully buried by the bullying of Big Alcohol.
Please like and share this article, this sort of disregard for the health of decent, hard-working folk of the world must stop.
Let’s learn the lessons of Big Tobacco and make sure the same mistakes don’t get repeated for another generation.
For more information on quitting drinking and reducing your own risk of cancer from this dangerous drug, click here.