(Newswire.net — September 11, 2017) — About four percent of new cancer cases are linked with alcohol consumption, according to a new study by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, Russia Today reports.
The study claims alcohol giants are not exactly striving to educate consumers about the connection between excessive alcohol consumption and cancer. Researchers are accusing marketers of seriously misleading customers by hiding facts from the public about cancer links to alcohol.
Published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, the study found in 2016, that 30 companies minimize or ignore the connection between alcohol and breast cancer risk.
According to the researchers who reviewed webpages of alcohol producers “the most common approach involves presenting the relationship between alcohol and cancer as highly complex, with the implication or statement that there is no evidence of a consistent or independent link.”
“Others include denying that any relationship exists or claiming inaccurately that there is no risk for light or ‘moderate’ drinking, as well as discussing a wide range of real and potential risk factors, thus presenting alcohol as just one risk among many,” the study claims.
Contrary to the posts that minimize or dispute findings that excessive alcohol consumption can lead to cancer, there are serious studies to support that claim.
Professor of public health and lead author of the study Mark Petticrew, claims that the alcohol industry actively attempts to cover up findings of alcohol risk of developing breast cancer, offering other explanations and bending the facts.
“Existing evidence of strategies employed by the alcohol industry suggests that this may not be a matter of simple error,“ Petticrew said. He emphasized the „obvious parallels“ with the global tobacco industry’s decades of misleading the public about the risk of cancer.
Alcohol lobbyists are stressing that risk of possibility is not same as the possibility itself, citing the same research results that say up to a 14 units a week poses no risk for overall health.
People are, however, more aware of the alleged breast cancer-alcohol connection than it may seem. Reuters cited Alcohol Health Alliance UK chairman Professor Sir Ian Gilmore who stressed that “the time has come to stop relying on voluntary agreements with an alcohol industry that is putting profits before people’s health.”
“With only one in 10 people aware of the link between alcohol and cancer, people have both a need and a right to clear information about the health risks of drinking alcohol” Professor Gilmore told Reuters.