Alcohol Action Ireland press release, December 4, 2024
With political parties about to start the horse trading to form the next coalition, during what is EU Alcohol Harm Awareness Week, Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI) is calling on the next government to take a public health approach to interactions with health-harming industries especially the alcohol industry which produces, markets and sells a product that is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions.
Despite the glossy image their relentless marketing portrays, the alcohol industry is unrelenting in its attempts to hide the detrimental reality of their product from consumers. Alcohol is classified as a group 1 carcinogen and there is a proven, causal link between alcohol and several types of cancer. However, the alcohol industry has fought tooth and nail both in Ireland and at EU level to hide this from the public. They do this in a number of ways including obstruction through participation in policy-making, through coalition building and mobilizing proxies, and by making use of extensive political resources in lobbying.
Ireland will become the first country in the world to mandate warning labels on alcoholic products when the law comes into force in May 2026, which was achieved in the face of ferocious resistance from the alcohol industry. At EU level, however, the alcohol industry had more joy keeping people in the dark over alcohol’s cancer risks when they succeeded – using the very same tactics they used in Ireland – in watering down the EU’s Beating Cancer Plan, despite more than 2.7 million people being diagnosed with cancer in the EU in 2020 and a further 1.3 million people dying from the disease.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “Despite all their marketing, the alcohol industry’s conduct around efforts to inform consumers about the health risks their product is known to cause reveals who they really are and what they really care about, that is shareholder profits above everything else and if some people happen to get cancer or some other preventative disease due to lack of awareness of the risks from alcohol then so be it.
“In a comprehensive feature article about the labelling of alcohol products in the New York Times, IBEC’s alcohol lobbying arm, Drinks Ireland, said warning language forthcoming on alcohol products in Ireland in relation to the links between cancer and liver disease was ‘disproportionate and inaccurate’ and primarily geared toward scaring people. In fact, what’s really scary is the thought of you or a loved one getting and perhaps dying from cancer and realising you could have prevented it had you been made aware of the risks. But this doesn’t even seem to register with the alcohol industry – for them it’s all about shareholder profits.”
A recent study carried out by the HSE’s National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) found that less than half of those surveyed (43.7%) were aware that alcohol is a risk factor for cancer. Amongst those who were aware of the alcohol-cancer link, almost half (46%) incorrectly believed that alcohol only causes cancer if you drink a lot of it over a long period of time. However, according to Dr Clíodhna Ní Bhuachalla of NCCP: “Alcohol causes at least 7 types of cancer: mouth, pharyngeal (throat), laryngeal (voice-box), oesophageal (food pipe), liver, breast and colorectal. Any amount of alcohol increases an individual’s cancer risk. The less you drink, the lower your risk.”
Dr Gilheany continued: “Given the evidence of alcohol industry machinations and attempts to block common-sense approaches, it is imperative that the new government should develop a clear framework to guide policy makers’ interactions with health-harming industries. Ireland must stand firm and vigorously uphold the Public Health (Alcohol) Act which was democratically passed in 2018 with support across the political spectrum. Health warning labels are not due to come into force for another 18 months. This gives the alcohol industry plenty of time to continue their quest to undermine public health measures, which we know from lobbying records that they are resolutely doing.
“What is clear is that alcohol industry representatives should not be involved in any way in policy making, a view which is strongly endorsed by the WHO. Why would the next government invite the fox into the henhouse?”
ENDS
NOTES:
AAI’s media language guide can be accessed here
