We all know alcohol is bad for you, so why do we need surgeon general warnings driving us to hysterics about cancer? This brand of logic drives rural voters crazy.
The Surgeon General has proposed increasing anxiety in 91% of Americans because 4.5% of the Americans who drink daily say they are unaware of the link between daily drinking and cancer.
Let me explain:
The “link” between alcohol consumption and cancer manifests itself for those who drink daily, which is only 9% of the population according to health experts.
However, the Surgeon General is worried because of a survey showing that 50% of Americans don’t know about the cancer risk. That means just 4.5% of daily drinkers say they aren’t aware of the risk.
So are the Surgeon General’s proposed anxiety-inducing cancer-warning labels on alcohol really good medicine?
Probably not.
American physicians are not good at addressing all of the costs associated with a particular intervention, particularly when it is outside their own specialty.
We saw this with the Covid epidemic, where many in the medical profession ignored the foreseeable consequences of various pandemic mitigation measures.
Sweden did not, and followed their pre-existing plan for such a pandemic, which was to do nothing. Sweden essentially front-loaded their Covid deaths, but over time their Excess Deaths were lower than virtually everyone, and by a large margin. The U.S., which spent $5.5 trillion on Covid, had a minimum of 50% more Excess Deaths than Sweden. Some researchers put this number much higher.
We don’t talk much about the Swedish success because politicians, researchers and doctors in the U.S. are allergic to humble pie.
Now, the Surgeon General is going down the same path with alcohol. He is advocating for warnings on alcohol bottles, targeted at 4.5% of the population, but has failed to disclose how many excess deaths that will cause. Nor does he present any evidence that the warning label will reduce drinking among daily drinkers. He simply hopes to increase anxiety enough that worry will cause drinkers to drink less.
This is a terrible idea.
I’m not sure I even buy his “fact” about the knowledge gap. All a survey shows is that 50% of Americans “admit” to knowing that drinking is linked to cancer. But is that really true among the 9% who drink daily? I’m not so sure. We all know that alcohol isn’t good for you, especially drinkers.
To address this knowledge gap among daily drinkers, the Surgeon General is proposing a warning label on all alcohol bottles about the cancer risk. This label will be visible to the remaining 91% of the population that doesn’t drink daily, including non-drinkers who worry about the drinking of their friends and relatives.
Warning labels themselves cause anxiety. It’s the whole point of the warning label. The warning itself will cause anxiety among the population, including those who don’t drink. It is already doing so given the angst evident in the news over the past week.
A great example of this is on the farm. There are often warnings on farm equipment that are quite alarming and graphic. I have seen farmers tape over some of these warnings because they don’t want to be reminded how dangerous farming is and how they could be maimed every time they jump on their tractor. It is depressing and causes anxiety.
Anxiety itself is also linked to cancer, including lung, brain, pancreatic, oral, breast, prostate, and skin cancer. Anxiety also depresses an individual’s ability to recover from cancer. It also is linked to depression, which in turn is linked to suicide. It is also linked to heart disease, stroke, blood clots, and a weakened immune system. According to the National Institutes of Health, anxiety alone can significantly increase your risk of death.
For those of us who have lived in France, it was obvious to us that the benefit of wine wasn’t the wine, but the socialization that comes with it. The first thing my French friends taught me when I initially lived in France was “Slow down! Enjoy the moment.” Americans often drink too fast and often don’t enjoy the moment. For the French, having a bottle of wine can be an event in and of itself. Some of the best memories in my life were sitting on a veranda in France discussing the wine we were about to drink. This socialization is what causes the “French paradox.”
Americans of course raced to find the reason for the French Paradox so that they could put it in pill form. This was a fool’s errand. Researchers eventually teased out the benefit of socialization and sure enough, wine alone doesn’t provide any benefit. Aha! Drinking any amount of alcohol alone is detrimental and not “safe”. I didn’t need researchers to tell me that.
Yet occasional drinking once or twice a week with friends and significant socialization can be beneficial. Recent research does not refute this. Telling me I’m going to get cancer and die from it is mean spirited and defeats the purpose.
There are also many things that cause far more cancer than alcohol. Take the sun - doctors say that no amount of sun exposure is safe. And the cancer risk is many times more serious. So why not put a warning on every exterior door that says “Leaving the shaded interior of this building will expose you to the sun, which has been shown to cause cancer. You might die from it.” We don’t because it would increase anxiety.
If education of the 4.5% of the population who are daily drinkers is really the issue here (and it is a big assumption that it would have any impact), let doctors do it in the doctor’s office. Don’t shame people and increase anxiety every time they have a drink. And please don’t start running ads in the media. These warnings also impact non-drinkers.
The parent will now have even more anxiety over their children’s drinking. Children will have anxiety over the parents’ and siblings’ drinking. Causing illness and deaths among those groups would indeed be malpractice.
Rural voters will view this as another attempt by the nanny state to control behavior. It also fuels the view urban voters are neurotic messes precisely because they go down these rabbit holes.
And of all the risks a farmer faces, having a glass of wine with dinner at the end of the week is dead last on the list of concerns. We shouldn’t be eliminating the one benefit of light and moderate drinking, which can be socialization. Socialization increases both lifespan and happiness.
Let’s not repeat the mistakes we made during the Covid epidemic. It doesn’t make sense to cause anxiety in 91% of the population to educate the minority of 4.5% who drink daily and say they aren’t aware of the cancer risk.
Let the doctor’s office educate that 4.5%.
After all, the physician’s cardinal duty is “First, do no harm.”
Mark W. Yonkman 21 January 2025