US Surgeon Vivek Murthy’s Big Move for Public Health
The US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a 22-page advisory suggesting that alcoholic beverages should have cancer warnings. The advisory said, “Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity. Scientific evidence for this connection has been growing over the past four decades; less than half of Americans recognise it as a risk factor for cancer.”
The advisory shared health warning labels are an effective approach to increasing awareness of health hazards and promoting behaviour changes. An experiment in Canada showed that just after two months of adding warning labels to alcoholic beverage containers, knowledge about health hazards related to alcohol grew by 10%.
Further in the advisory, Vivek Murthy added in his advisory that alcohol is linked to 1 lakh cancer diagnoses and 20 thousand deaths annually in the US, CNN reported.
Hyderabad-based neurologist Dr Sudhir Kumar said the South First news agency, India also needs the same warning. He said that the glamourisation of alcohol attracts others; as a result, even people who can’t afford it are drawn to drink it. Dr Sudhir further added that we must demonise alcohol with graphics like we do cigarettes. Sudhir Kumar shared that there is a lack of education and awareness about alcohol’s effects, which results in incidents like how a flight from Surat to Bangkok broke records for alcohol consumption.
