Thread by @TheCounter

#THREAD: The link between alcohol and cancer has been evident for over three decades. Why don’t alcohol warning labels reflect that? thecounter.org/public-health-…

Both the CDC and the U.S. Surgeon General have said that even moderate drinking increases one's risk for certain types of cancer.

One analysis published last year estimated that the cancer risk posed by drinking one bottle of wine a week was comparable to smoking five cigarettes for men and 10 for women in the same time span: livescience.com/65092-alcohol-…

However, less than half of Americans know about alcohol’s cancer risk. Part of the reason for this is the pervasive myth that moderate drinking is “heart healthy”—an association that has long been debunked as a conclusion of shoddy analysis.

Booze companies and industry-affiliated groups also regularly spread misinformation online that downplays or casts uncertainty around alcohol's cancer risk: iogt.org/wp-content/upl…

To give consumers clarity, a coalition of public health groups has filed a petition to the agency that oversees alcohol labeling, calling for a mandatory cancer warning on all alcohol sold in the U.S.

Since 1989, federal law has required every bottle of booze sold in the U.S. to bear a message stating that alcohol “may cause health problems.” This language has never been updated. Petitioners want it to be modernized, and to make explicit alcohol’s status as a carcinogen.

The petitioners know they face an uphill battle: The first (and last) time cancer warning labels were applied to alcoholic beverages sold in North America was during a 2017 study. One month into that experiment, industry groups successfully pressured local officials to halt it.

Despite the interruption, researchers were still able to pull some telling findings from the four-week run: Shoppers exposed to cancer warnings were significantly more likely to know about alcohol’s risks, and total alcohol sales in the region dropped by more than 6 percent.

Right now, just two countries, South Korea and Ireland, have laws on the books requiring cancer warnings on booze. Today's petitioners want the U.S. to be next—and to close the general drinking public's awareness gap in the meantime. Read the story here: thecounter.org/public-health-…