Surgeon General calls for cancer risk warning on alcoholic beverages
The U.S. Surgeon General issued a consult Calls for warnings about cancer risks to be included in alcoholic drinks.
“Given the strong evidence regarding the risk of cancer from drinking alcohol and the responsibility of the Office of the Surgeon General to inform the American public about the best available scientific evidence, the Surgeon General recommends that the Surgeon General’s Warning Label for Alcoholic Beverages be updated to include the risk of cancer Warning,” Dr Vivek Murthy said during Friday’s advisory.
The advisory noted that alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the country, behind tobacco and obesity.
“Alcohol is a recognized, preventable cause of cancer, responsible for approximately 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths in the United States each year, which is more than the 13,500 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the United States each year, But most Americans are unaware of the risk,” Murthy said in the release.
The advisory also said that by 2020, more than 740,000 cancer cases globally could be attributed to alcohol consumption. Yet while the link between drinking and cancer was discovered in the 1980s and became clearer in 2019, the American public remains largely unaware of the risk. The advisory says the time has come.
This is a breaking news story. It will be updated.
