Tackling misinformation: The truth about the great alcohol hoax
Health misinformation is widespread. Many people are still unaware that alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen, linked to at least 7 different cancers including breast and bowel. This is unsurprising when you consider the alcohol industry’s long documented history of downplaying these well-established risks.
What’s more, alcohol is an outlier when it comes to labelling. Did you know that there is more legally required information on a bottle of water than on a bottle of alcohol? This is despite the serious harm alcohol can do, and the clear evidence that when it comes to cancer there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
Cancer warnings on alcohol labels
To counter this and ensure people have access to clear, evidence-based information, World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and Balance are campaigning for a cancer warning to be included on the UK Government’s forthcoming mandatory alcohol labels, as outlined in our guest blog – It’s time to expose the great alcohol hoax. It is also imperative that industry-backed messaging such as ‘drink responsibly’ are removed, and that the policy is protected from industry influence more broadly.
The reality is that mandatory labels will take some time to come into force. In the meantime, WCRF has developed the TRUST Test, a simple tool to help people make sense of the health information they encounter online and separate fact from fiction. In our guest blog for Alcohol Change UK – Tackling persistent health misinformation on alcohol – we apply our TRUST Test to a common myth about red wine, showing how scientific research has been taken out of context.
Melissa Dando
The [red wine] myth originates from a study which found that a large amount of resveratrol, an antioxidant in the skin of purple and red grapes and therefore present in red wine, supported heart health in mice. The reality is that one would have to drink between 100 and 1,000 glasses of red wine a day to get anywhere near the amount of resveratrol equivalent to the doses that improved heart health in mice.
Health professionals also have a vital role to play. That’s why we’re calling for the upcoming NHS 10 Year Workforce Plan to provide additional staffing capacity and training on cancer prevention. This will help ensure that nurses and other patient-facing staff have the time and skills to counter the health misinformation, including on alcohol, that patients are increasingly bringing to their routine appointments.
