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Shares of beverage makers fell after the US Surgeon General said that alcoholic beverages should carry a warning to raise awareness about their link to cancer.
The U.S. government's top doctor released a public health report on Friday consultative Alcohol consumption is reported to be second only to tobacco and obesity as the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States.
Congress should allow updated warning labels on alcohol-containing beverages about cancer risk, among other measures that could reduce related cancers in the United States, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said.
These tips and recommendations are reminiscent of public health efforts targeting the tobacco industry in recent decades, which have led to significant declines in smoking rates.
Alcohol stocks On both sides of the Atlantic, there was intense selling after the warning on Friday, sending the share prices of several brewery and distillery owners down more than 2 percent. At the high end, shares of Rémy Cointreau fell 5 percent, while shares of New York-listed Boston Beer closed down about 4 percent.
Alcohol was first classified as a Group 1 carcinogen – meaning it is an agent known to cause cancer in humans – by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in the 1980s. Murthy said the evidence on the link between alcohol and cancer has strengthened over time, and that for some cancers, such as breast, mouth and throat cancer, the risk starts to rise when people have one or fewer drinks per day.
The World Health Organization issued guidelines in 2022 saying there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption that does not affect health. The agency said in a statement published in the Lancet Public Health medical journal, that the latest data indicates that half of the cancer cases that can be attributed to alcohol were caused by light or moderate alcohol drinking, which is defined as the equivalent of less than a liter and a half. of wine, three and a half liters of beer, or 450 ml of spirits per week.
The Surgeon General said that less than half of Americans realize that drinking alcohol increases their risk of cancer. The bulletin said there was much greater awareness about the increasing risks from radiation, tobacco and asbestos.
While many countries, including the United States, require certain health warnings to be placed on alcoholic beverages, such as the dangers of drinking alcohol to pregnant women, few specifically alert consumers to the increased cancer risk. Ireland and South Korea have placed cancer warnings on alcoholic drinks in recent years.
Alcohol can cause cancer by damaging DNA, increasing inflammation, or changing hormone levels such as estrogen. It can also facilitate the absorption of other carcinogens such as tobacco smoke into the body.
