The World Health Organization (WHO) has added its voice to the rising demand for cancer-related warning labels to feature on alcoholic beverages, this time in Europe.
The health association said raising the public’s awareness that consuming alcohol can lead to cancer needs to be mandatory and can “empower consumers to make informed choices that can help reduce alcohol-related harms”. It added that many countries in its Europe have yet to make significant progress in implementing alcohol harm reduction policies.
In a statement issued late last week, the WHO said breast and colon cancers are the “most prevalent” alcohol-related cancers in the EU affecting women and men, respectively. It cited a survey that ran in 14 European countries that found just 15% of respondents knew that alcohol can cause breast cancer and 39% were aware of its link to colon cancer.
Alcohol health warning labels are currently implemented in only three out of 27 EU countries and only 13 out of the 53 WHO member states in the continent.
Among the findings cited in the report, the WHO said that while the alcohol industry “The alcohol industry generally supports the introduction of QR codes on products” to provide health-related details, “only 0.26% of shoppers (in Europe) scanned QR codes for health information, underscoring the importance of visible, on-pack labels”.
“Clear and prominent health warning labels on alcohol, which include a specific cancer warning, are a cornerstone of the right to health, because they empower individuals with vital information to make informed choices about the harm alcoholic products can cause,” said the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P Kluge.
“Providing this information does not take anything away from consumers. On the contrary, it arms them with knowledge, and knowledge is power.”
At the beginning of January, the office of the US Surgeon General leaned on the country’s lawmakers to update warning labels on alcohol to emphasise the risk of developing cancer from consuming alcohol.
