philcain

Experts welcomed a re-commitment to alcohol health warning labels in a new cancer plan for England this week, but highlighted the absence of evidence-based policies. Instead the plan looks to the unproven merits of lo-no drinks.

The government said it would “tackle harmful alcohol consumption by introducing new mandatory health warnings and nutritional information on alcohol labels” in a cancer plan for England on Wednesday.

“The government’s re-commitment to cancer warnings on alcohol labels is the first step needed address this. But labelling alone will not go far enough,” said Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, Chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK.

The alliance said the government should also look to introduce evidence-based measures to reduce alcohol consumption which increase the price of alcohol and reduce its availability and marketing.

The plan does not mention these policies, instead saying the government will “explore options to encourage consumers to reduce their alcohol intake with no- and low- alcohol alternative”.

A group of influential experts said last month that there is currently no firm evidence that alcohol-free drinks reduce alcohol consumption. ■

A new trove of documents obtained under the UK’s freedom of information act show how the alcohol industry aggressively campaigned for the government to drop alcohol marketing restrictions from its flagship health plan last year, as it did.

The government’s NHS ten year plan caused consternation among health experts when it did not mention alcohol marketing restrictions that had been widely trailed in the runup to its launch. Such restrictions are among the WHO’s top recommendations for reducing alcohol harm.

The documents show alcohol companies and alcohol trade groups wrote to the health secretary, chancellor and business secretary pleading for them to help water down the government’s health plan, according to a new report from the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS).

The NGO, which works to improve UK alcohol policy, said it obtained a total of 47 documents showing alcohol companies and alcohol industry funded organisations using “strikingly similar arguments, shared language, and coordinated timing” to push for a weakened health agenda.  Their contents are misleading, according to the IAS.

“This is a textbook example of why the alcohol industry should have no role in shaping health policy. Their business model depends on increasing consumption, while public health depends on reducing it,” said Alice Wiseman, vice president at the Association of Directors of Public Health. ■

A new alcohol industry forecast shows there is little chance of alcohol-free drinks reducing global alcohol consumption, which is an order of magnitude bigger with little evidence of erosion from alcohol-frees.

Alcohol industry analyst IWSR said yesterday the global volume of “no-alcohol analogues”—alcohol-free beer, wine and spirits—would grow 36% by volume between 2024 and 2029, reaching over “18bn servings” globally.

This would bring alcohol-frees up to just 2% of the 900bn servings a year of alcoholic versions.* There is also currently no reliable evidence to suggest that alcohol-free drinks replace alcoholic drinks rather than soft drinks.

Last month a group of experts warned that public health “should not take market-led solutions to public health problems at face value” in regard to alcohol-free analogues.

AR has also been recommending scepticism about the potential of alcohol-free drinks as a solution to alcohol harm for a while. They divert valuable attention from measures shown to reduce harm.

*Note: The world consumes around 450bn litres of alcoholic drinks a year, mostly beer, which would translate into upwards of 900bn servings, if every serving were a half-litre. ■

“As with e-cigarettes and reformulated foods, we should not take market-led solutions to public health problems at face value,” wrote a group of prominent alcohol harm researchers about no-lo drinks in the BMJ this week.

There is currently no clear evidence for no-lo drinks taking the place of alcohol products to any significant degree, the piece says. Where there is some the effects “may be too small to deliver substantial health gains”. No-lo sales may be rising, but they may be supplanting soft drinks not alcoholic ones.

“No-lo drinks present risks to wider public health policy,” the piece warns. Giving alcohol interests undue credit for contributing to a reduction in alcohol harm with no-los might allow them to pose as “contributors to reducing alcohol related harm”. In turn this would give alcohol interests undue influence over policy-making, it warns.

Noting alcohol-free Corona Cero’s recent Olympic sponsorship deal, the piece says, “Ensuring alcohol marketing codes apply the same rules to no-lo drinks would prevent this encroachment of alcohol brands into previously alcohol-free forums.”

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AR comment: We should not credit no-los with the status of a solution to our alcohol problems before there is any solid evidence. Alcohol-free drinks been around for a while and a miracle has yet to occur. And yet the breathless coverage leaves a different impression.

Further research is, of course, always welcome, but common sense is a useful guide in the meantime. Alcohol companies would surely not promote a product which would seriously undermine their core business, that of selling an addictive product.

To give the benefit of the doubt on this not only gives alcohol interests a foot in the door to health policy discussions, it allows them to crowd out discussion of harm reduction policies that have solid evidence to back them up. There is good reason to resist the hype.

On the individual level it is surely wrong to emphasis the benefit of replacing one type of drink with another. Promoting no-los encourages us to participate in the trickiest scenarios to navigate minus alcohol.

Instead, why not encourage a wider focus on recreational activities which are not centred on beverages of any kind? ■