> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption.
The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk.
If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000300001%, it would still be considered unsafe, as your chances of cancer increased.
I see the logic, but that isn’t layman‘s categorization of safe or unsafe. And what are the actual base risk of cancer for a healthy individual ?
Taking a base of 60 million death per year, who’s numbers on cancer are of 10 million [0], where death by liver cancer are 830 000, roughly 1%. Given that those don’t all come from alcohol, and to reach that stage requires way more than standard consumption, the base risk feels already pretty low.
All in all, while this article is factual, it turns this facts in such a biased way it feels dogmatic at times. If we’re going to have serious discussions around alcohol, we shouldn’t start them like this.
[0] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer