THE global health killjoys have come out fighting already this year with what appears to be a new campaign aimed at alcohol. The driver behind this mantra of misery is the outgoing US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy (clearly not ‘Murphy’), who says that there is no safe level of alcohol, even the one glass of red wine per day that is often proclaimed as health-giving and life-prolonging.
He also wants the public to be aware that alcohol causes cancer and is, allegedly, responsible for 20,000 deaths annually in the United States. Alcohol-related cancer, therefore, kills 0.006 per cent of Americans per year. To put that in perspective, dementia kills 0.09 per cent of Americans per year and heart disease 0.21 per cent.
There is no doubt about the link between alcohol and cancer and it is implicated in seven types of cancer including breast, mouth, throat and liver. But, without appearing too flippant, with approximately 200,500,000 Americans consuming alcohol and only 20,000 per year dying from cancer related to that drinking, it could be said that an overwhelming proportion of Americans who drink alcohol do not die of cancer related to their consumption. Of course, they might fall downstairs, crash their car or get into a fatal scrap. But so might many teetotallers.
Fun-crusher-in-chief Murthy wants to make the labels on alcohol containers more explicit about the dangers. Currently US containers carry warnings about alcohol-related birth defects and not operating machinery while under the influence. In the UK we have a warning about birth defects in the form of a cryptic depiction of a pregnant woman (could be a man, of course) with a red cross, often jokingly misinterpreted as a warning that drinking may lead to pregnancy.
Vivek Murthy has not specified how ‘informative’ the labels should be but I imagine he has in mind a campaign similar to the one whereby all cigarette packets in the US must carry explicit colour pictures related to tobacco-related cancers. We followed suit in the UK. In Australia they send the anti-smoking message so strongly that you can barely tell which brand of cigarettes you are buying, so festooned is the packet with pathological images.
Is this what Murthy has in mind for wine bottles? Given the almost evangelical fervour of the extreme elements of the health promotion brigade, we can well imagine that it is. The wine label business is competitive and can be lucrative. A well-designed label can cost upwards of $1,000 but some of the best labels are described as priceless.
Can we look forward to our admiration of the artwork on the label of an expensive bottle of wine being ruined by the inclusion of depictions of cancerous tissues and dying alcoholics? Will the tasting notes referring to ‘hints of cinnamon’ and ‘notes of lime and melon’ with a ‘fragrant finish’ have to include information on how much you will increase your chances of having breast/mouth/throat/liver cancer if you pop the cork and have a sip? It is more than likely they will.
Soon to leave office, Vivek Murthy has thrown down a gauntlet for the Trump administration to pick up, or not. The incoming President is teetotal and his chosen Health Secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr, is a recovering alcoholic. It will be interesting to see which way they go with this.
Will they realise that, while alcohol can be dangerous and there may be no safe level, it is enjoyed by millions, mostly in moderation? It is a relaxant, a social mixer and the alcohol industry supports millions of jobs worldwide. If there is ‘no safe level’, the Vivek Murthys of this world presumably envisage zero tolerance and wish to ban consumption completely, akin to the campaign against tobacco.
As Homer Simpson said, alcohol is ‘the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems’. It may, indeed, be the cause of a few problems but some of our major national and international problems are currently coming from adherents to a religion that eschews alcohol. One is bound to wonder: Could there be a link?
