Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
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Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#2Is more comprehensive labeling and related regulations a strategy for incumbents to further solidify their monopolies?
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#3Interesting that the article states repeatedly that there is zero safe level of alcohol when it comes to cancer.
A lot of food we eat contains small amount of alcohol, bread in particular. Vinegar, fruits and juices too. And generally, we are well equipped to deal with it, and it only starts to become problematic when we start to run out of the required enzymes and are left with the toxic byproducts that cause hangovers.
If the threshold is zero, it means that even "safe", easily metabolized alcohol is a problem and we should find correlations even between non-drinkers based on diet.
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#4Doesn't everything in California have a cancer warning? They're meaningless.
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#5Is more comprehensive labeling and related regulations a strategy for incumbents to further solidify their monopolies?
Seems like the industry wasn't a fan when the Yukon government tried warning labels: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-alcohol-warning-l...
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#6If the medical community wants to gain my trust in their cancer judgements they can start by analyzing the cancer risks of the tens of thousands of chemicals that are used every day in our lives and to which we are exposed. PFAS, PFOS, insecticides, Purell (which is alcohol, does it cause cancer?), cleaning agents, food additives, tar coal oils, benzene in cigarette lighter butane and gasoline, plasticizers, skin lotions, fragrances, titanium dioxide (used in food, do you like eating metal catalysts?), and all the rest, separately and in combinations. All ignored for decades. If they can sequence DNA they can test all these substances for harm. Don't tell me it's too difficult, get cracking and you'll finish sooner. And now they want to convince me one particular chemical, widely used for millennia is the cause of a 50% increase in cancer risk? What's that 50% applied to? A 0.01% base risk? Where does all the base risk come from and is it greater than the risk from alcohol? Is it the combination of other chemicals and alcohol that raises cancer risk? Nuclear fallout from atomic bomb tests is still in everything across the world. Silica dust from Africa is in our air. Air pollution from ICE engines is everywhere, layered for decades in the soil along with the lead that used to be in gasoline. What's the risk from that? Why don't we have warning labels on gasoline pumps, and cars, and cities, and plastics? Should everyone be suing the USA, Russia, and China for above ground nuclear tests and the car makers and oil producers for polluting the air? There are unavoidable risks from radiation from space and the radiation in the soil and rock varies by locality so where you live may be a bigger determinant of cancer risk than what you drink. The medical research community just doesn't have much credibility when it comes to cancer causes. Particularly after the Surgeon General did nothing except a few press releases for decades about cigarettes. Stop doing all those useless, underpowered, non-blind, studies that even researchers don't trust and start putting some effort into finding cures and doing real research instead of only looking for drugs that have minor effect and are a burden on the economy. /rant
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#7If the medical community wants to gain my trust in their cancer judgements they can start by analyzing the cancer risks of the tens of thousands of chemicals that are used every day in our lives and to which we are exposed. PFAS, PFOS, insecticides, Purell (which is alcohol, does it cause cancer?), cleaning agents, food additives, tar coal oils, benzene in cigarette lighter butane and gasoline, plasticizers, skin lot…
This is not a good take. If you care whether or not the list of chemicals you provided are cancerous, then you are free to study that yourself or support scientists that do study it. Just because a group of scientists chooses to study something you're not interested in doesn't mean that you can discount their work as "untrustworthy." Well you can, but it would be to your, and society's, detriment.
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#8Doesn't everything in California have a cancer warning? They're meaningless.
Money maker for lawyers. You get a fee if you find non-compliance.
As with most things. Follow the money.
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#9If the medical community wants to gain my trust in their cancer judgements they can start by analyzing the cancer risks of the tens of thousands of chemicals that are used every day in our lives and to which we are exposed. PFAS, PFOS, insecticides, Purell (which is alcohol, does it cause cancer?), cleaning agents, food additives, tar coal oils, benzene in cigarette lighter butane and gasoline, plasticizers, skin lot…
This is not a good take. If you care whether or not the list of chemicals you provided are cancerous, then you are free to study that yourself or support scientists that do study it. Just because a group of scientists chooses to study something you're not interested in doesn't mean that you can discount their work as "untrustworthy." Well you can, but it would be to your, and society's, detriment.
I think this is exactly the problem with the medical research community, they study what they choose to study, not what is important to study. This is a well known problem with research in general, researchers choose the easy problems and the profitable problems, while the hard problems get ignored for decades. Mapping DNA was considered too hard, until someone actually tried to do it, and now it's common. The research that is ignored (because it is thought too difficult, is too political, doesn't fit with researchers idea of morality, is not in the interest of big pharma, or would disrupt profitable empires) is what drives my lack of trust. In particular, the opinions described in this article seem like blatant victim blaming instead of any serious attempt to reduce harm from something that is never going to disappear from society given it's greater than ten thousand year history.
Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
#10Interesting that the article states repeatedly that there is zero safe level of alcohol when it comes to cancer. A lot of food we eat contains small amount of alcohol, bread in particular. Vinegar, fruits and juices too. And generally, we are well equipped to deal with it, and it only starts to become problematic when we start to run out of the required enzymes and are left with the toxic byproducts that cause hangov…
I previously read an article about alcohol and safety, which made a similar claim. The lowest level of alcohol consumption in their data was two drinks a day. They had no idea if there was a safe amount below that.
I'd assume it's a talking point that activists have adopted.