For years, I’ve written about the need to warn the American public about the link between drinking alcoholic and cancer through labeling alcoholic beverages. I was among those didn’t know about the link until about eight years ago when I received an email on it.
Last week, the American Medical Association, or AMA, adopted resolutions supporting a cancer warning on alcoholic beverage labels and in stores, endorsing a reduction of the Dietary Guidelines’ alcohol recommendations, and opposing the use of “pinkwashing” to market alcohol products.
The alcohol industry has fought hard to obscure the science around alcohol’s link to cancer. And, its allies in Congress have harassed federal research agency staff who have calculated estimates of how much alcohol has contributed to the decline in the nation’s average life expectancy.
However, all the lobbyists in the world can’t change the fact that for cancer prevention, there is no “safe” amount of alcohol, Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy, for the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group, said in a statement.
“Now, with its resolution to ‘promote public education about the risks between alcohol use and cancer, especially breast cancer,’ America’s physicians have joined in the fight to give consumers accurate information about alcoholic beverages,” Gremillion said.
He said the AMA’s resolution represents an important milestone towards common sense, consumer friendly alcohol reforms.
The AMA resolution supports “front-of-package labeling” on alcohol that includes “appropriate acknowledgment of alcohol’s causal link to cancer and the evidence that the risk of harm increases with greater alcohol consumption,” consistent with the U.S. Surgeon General’s recent advisory on alcohol and cancer risk.
“Congress must ultimately amend federal law to change the warning statement on alcoholic beverage labels,” he said.
The AMA’s resolution also endorses public policies that state and local governments can enact to educate consumers, including “clear, evidence-based point-of-sale warning signage in physical and digital retail environments where alcohol is sold.”
State and local governments have authority to require cancer and other health warning statements on alcohol advertising.
Alcohol advertising has become wide-spread in recent years. Online marketing activities, not covered by the voluntary industry codes that apply to other media, raise concerns about youth exposure to alcohol-branded content, which is associated with more binge drinking and other alcohol-related risks.
AMA targets the lack of standards for alcohol advertising, including the practice of “pinkwashing” that includes alcoholic beverage marketing with breast cancer causes.
Researchers have shown how “pinkwashed beer ads” lead consumers to favor certain brands and to perceive them as healthier than they otherwise would. Appropriate health warning statements on alcohol advertising would diminish the appeal of “pinkwashed” ads, Gremillion said.
Hopefully, the AMA resolutions can move the information on the harm of alcohol forward so consumers will know that it’s real and take action to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption.
