<
https://www.vox.com/health/460086/rfk-jr-trump-maha-cancer-alcohol-study-health>
"Most Americans still don’t know that alcohol can cause cancer — and the
alcohol industry is working hard to make sure it stays that way.
For the past three years, the industry, aided by its allies in Congress and
later the Trump administration, has sought to discredit and eventually bury a
major analysis that offers new evidence of the link between drinking alcohol
and getting sick and dying from various causes, including cancer.
It appears their campaign has succeeded. Three co-authors on the
Alcohol
Intake and Health Study, which was commissioned in early 2022 by the US
Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, told
Vox
that they were informed last month that the Trump administration did not intend
to publish the final draft of the study or its findings.
“The thing that the alcohol industry fears more than increased taxes is
increased knowledge about the risks associated with drinking alcohol,
particularly around cancer,” Mike Marshall, CEO of a group dedicated to
reducing alcohol’s harms called the Alcohol Policy Alliance, who was not
involved with the study, told me. “Like the tobacco industry, like the opioid
industry, they are working hard to prevent the American people from gaining the
knowledge that they need to make the best decisions for themselves.”
Why assert so much pressure? It makes sense if you look at the headwinds the
alcohol industry faces. Americans today are drinking less. This year, Gallup
recorded a historic low in the percentage of US adults who drink: 54 percent,
down from 67 percent in 2022.
Though the vibes around alcohol are shifting, a lot of people still don’t fully
understand alcohol’s health consequences. Surveys have found that while the
percentage of Americans who know that alcohol is a carcinogen has been rising,
it is still below 50 percent.
By the end of the year, the federal government will issue new dietary
guidelines — something that happens every five years — which include
recommended limits on alcohol consumption. The alcohol study’s results were
intended to inform those guidelines."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
