Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health: Why Alcohol Needs a Cancer Warning Label
https://magazine.publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/why-alcohol-needs-cancer-warn...
Extracts and a comment from me below.
'More than six in 10 Americans drink alcohol. But less than half of them know that they’re increasing their cancer risk while they’re doing it.
'Alcohol consumption is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S., after tobacco and obesity, and leads to a higher risk of at least seven types of cancer, including colorectal, liver, esophageal, laryngeal, throat, mouth, and breast—the link to which was demonstrated in 1987.
'Based on mounting evidence connecting alcohol consumption — even in small amounts — to increased risk of cancer, on January 3, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory on the link between alcohol and cancer, and recommended that the warning label on alcohol containers be changed to reflect the connection. The WHO, which in February issued a similar call for alcohol labels to carry a cancer warning, declared alcohol a Class I carcinogen — in the same category as cigarette smoking and asbestos — in 1990...'
COMMENT (NPW): This is one of countless examples where the general public is unaware of basic facts that affect their health. It is an indictment of public health education that awareness and understanding are so low.
I did a quick search and identified a recent study in the UK and Europe where 'awareness of the link between alcohol and breast cancer ranged between 10% and 20%, head and neck cancer 15–25%, colorectal and oesophagus cancer 15–45% and liver cancer 40%'. https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/33/6/1128/7295464
I was unable to find any comparable research in other countries/LMICs.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org