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New Article Documents Alcohol Industry’s Vested Interests in State Regulation
In a peer-reviewed article in the February 2012 issue of Addiction, Sarah Mart, director of research at Alcohol Justice, has documented the alcohol industry’s excessive involvement in the annual National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (NCSLA) that took place in June 2010. More than two-thirds (72%) of the 187 meeting attendees, and 65% of the panelists, were from the alcohol industry. The rest represented state alcohol control systems and federal government agencies. Mart was the only participant representing public health policy. “Big Alcohol panelists sent regulators a warning message: Be industry-friendly. Don’t rock the boat of commerce with public health concerns, or your job may be on the line,” reported Mart. “The Federal officials that were present also spoke about supporting the industry, instead of protecting public safety.” Click here for the press release, and email info@alcoholjustice.org to request the full article.
(Source: Newsletter Alcohol Justice, 01/25/12)

Dipak K. Das, the University of Connecticut researcher who studied the link between aging and a substance found in red wine has committed more than 100 acts of data fabrication and falsification, the university said on January 11, 2012, throwing much of his work into doubt. Das, who directed the university’s Cardiovascular Research Center, studied resveratrol, touted by a number of scientists and companies as a way to slow aging or remain healthy as people get older. Among his findings, according to a work promoted by the University of Connecticut in 2007, was that ‘the pulp of grapes is as heart-healthy as the skin, even though the antioxidant properties differ.’

“We have a responsibility to correct the scientific record and inform peer researchers across the country,” Philip Austin, the university’s interim vice president for health affairs, said in a statement.

The university said an anonymous tip led to an investigation that began in 2008. A 60,000-page report — the summary of which is available at http://bit.ly/xkyS4A — resulted, outlining 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data. Other members of Das’ laboratory may have been involved, and are being investigated, the report continues. …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, 01/18/12) reuters.com, 01/12/12
Comment: Is this the turning point? Will the medias act?

University of Connecticut News, 01/11/12: Scientific Journals Notified Following Research Misconduct Investigation

16-year-olds can currently buy beer and wine in stores, but must wait until they are 18 to be served in bars.
In an Opinion poll of 1,126 Danes conducted for Retail Institute Scandinavia, 73 percent said it was “a good idea” or “a very good idea” to forbid the sale of alcohol to individuals under 18.
Sharing that opinion was the health minister, Astrid Krag of the Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF).
“Danes’ high alcohol consumption is to blame for poor health and a lower life span, and especially among the younger population we have a problem that we must tackle,” Krag said to Berlingske newspaper. “Therefore, I’m happy to the see the opinion results and I believe that the age limit is one of the things we should adjust.” … (Source: Alcohol Reports – News, 01/09/12) theCopenhagenpost, 01/06/12

An article in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization raises concerns regarding conflict of interest in a partnership where SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer by sales volume, receive funding from the Global Fund for a HIV/AIDS prevention project in drinking establishements in South Africa.
“No conflict of interest” replies the Global Fund.
The recent issue of Bulletin of the World Health Organization carries a round table section: “Global Fund collusion with liquor giant is a clear conflict of interest. The First article is by Richard Matzopoulos, Charles DH Parry, Joanne Corrigall, Jonny Myers, Sue Goldstein and Leslie London. They describe how the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) has recently included SABMiller as a recipient of funding for an education intervention aimed at minimizing alcohol-related harm, including HIV prevention, among men in drinking establishments.The authors think Global Fund support for this initiative is cause for concern.

The article discusses whether men in drinking establishments are the best target group for the intervention, whether a drinking establishment is the best location, and whether the educational intervention itself is effective. Their experience is that the liquor industry is inclined to support alcohol interventions that will not affect drinking rates at a population level. These interventions allow the industry to simultaneously fulfil social and legal obligations to address the harmful use of alcohol while ensuring that sales and profits are maintained.

Providing funding for a highly profitable industry that could afford to fund its own interventions also reduces the funds available for less well-resourced organizations.

Ask the authors: “Do we take it that the problem of “corporate capture” has now spread to one of the largest health funders in the world?” …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, 01/08/12) add-recources.org, 01/05/12
Comment: At least the industry accepted the role of alcohol regarding HIV.

Warning labels aimed at pregnant women will be added to all alcohol products in New Zealand and Australia.

The Australian and New Zealand Ministerial Council on Food Regulation agreed to introduce labelling telling of the risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy at a Melbourne meeting last week in response to the recommendations of the independent Food Policy and Labelling Review.
The labelling will be regulated in two year’s time. …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, News, 12/20/11) nzherald.co.nz, 12/16/11

Scientific Opinion of the Science Group of the European Alcohol and Health Forum

From the Foreword: The enormous burden of individual harm (often to those around the problem drinker as well as the drinker themselves) and aggregated lost productivity that are highlighted in the report should make it clear to all that inactivity is not an option and complacency will cost lives. We owe it to the populations we serve to use every opportunity that is founded in sound evidence to preserve and improve health and this report should lay the foundations of applying this to the workplace. But the workplace cannot be taken in isolation: just as work affects health and wellbeing beyond the workplace, so do many factors outside work, such as the price, availability and marketing of alcohol, or access to social programs and general healthcare reflect back on the health of the workforce. The Science Group believes that the European Commission across its various directorates has the potential to be a vital catalyst for good practice in this two-way process.
Professor Ian Gilmore
Chair, Science Group
From the Summary:
Impact of alcohol on the workplace and productivity
Globally, alcohol is the world’s number one risk factor for ill-health and premature death amongst the 25-59 year old age group, the core of the working age population. It is unsurprising, therefore that lost productivity costs feature as the dominant element in social costs studies arising from the harm done by alcohol (contributing to one half or more of the
total social costs). Becoming unemployed worsens alcohol-related harm, and heavy drinking, itself, leads to unemployment. Alcohol is a significant risk factor for absenteeism and presenteeism at work, largely in a dose response manner, with a relationship between societal and individual level of alcohol consumption and sickness absence. Although some studies have reported a positive impact of alcohol consumption on earnings, a proxy measure of productivity, a meta-analysis of relevant studies suggested that the relationship was an artefact. Often forgotten is the impact of drinkers on the productivity of people other than the drinker. An Australian study found this to be comparable in cost size as the lost
productivity costs of the drinkers themselves. The work place itself also impacts on alcoholrelated harm. Certain occupations (in particular bar staff and sea workers) are at particular risk, and, in general, stressful working environments increase the risk of alcohol-related harm.
(Source: Alcohol Reports, 12/18/11) ec.europa.eu, Sept. 2011
Comment: This report should be taken into account by all industrial leaders and governments. Especially interesting the part about the role of abstainers. It’s the same “artefact” as we see in studies on alcohol and health.

The health and social care provider Turning Point has said alcohol misuse within families is an escalating concern in its new report “Bottling it up: the next generation”. It says early screening and identification of families is needed urgently to prevent the ‘inter-generational cycle’ of alcohol misuse which blights the lives of children and undermines their life chances.

Up to 2.6 million children live with parents who drink at “hazardous” levels and around 700,000 children are thought to live with dependent drinkers. As picked up in the Daily Express, pressure put on women to be “supermums” was felt to be increasing alcohol use as a coping mechanism. Turning Point said more than 5,000 people who used their alcohol treatment services last year were parents.

The report says children of parents who misuse alcohol are more at risk of depression, anxiety and increased anger. Turning Point also highlighted JRF research which found that children who see their parents drunk are twice as likely to get drunk themselves. Children living with drinking parents are also more likely to experiment at an early age with alcohol and drugs, increasing the risk of their own later life substance problems.

In the report Turning Point call on the Government to place a duty on Local Authorities to develop strategies that take into account the harms to family life and children’s development. They also advocate the development of services which are more family focused and home-based, better liaison between adult and children’s services, and more information available to help affected children. … (Source: Alcohol Policy UK, 12/15/11)

France, with a culture that embraces wine, is facing serious concerns about teenage binge drinking, NPR reports.

Many parents in France and other European countries permit their teens to drink alcohol at home. But new French pop-up street parties, organized through Facebook, are encouraging teens to drink shots of vodka, and are contributing to a growing problem of binge drinking among teens.

According to Bertrand Nalpas, who leads the Alcohol and Addiction Office at the French National Institute on Health and Medical Research, the number of French teenagers who drink heavily is on the rise. He estimates that about 20 percent of French 17-year-olds are drunk at least three times a month, even though new laws in France prohibit anyone under 18 from buying alcohol. … (Source: Join Together, 12/12/11)

This supplement provides up-to-date estimates of the numbers (and percentages) of new cancer cases in the UK that are attributable to factors that have been established by international consensus as potentially avoidable causes of the disease. It therefore offers a useful guide to the relative importance of different preventive interventions.

Excluded from consideration are factors that, although known to be effective in reducing the risk of numerically important cancers, do not offer acceptable or practical preventive strategies at present. Early and multiple childbearing (to prevent breast cancer) and the widespread use of anti-androgen drugs (to prevent prostate cancer) come under this category. What remains is a limited number of important factors that can, at least to some extent, be affected by personal or political choices. The most important among these is continuation of the significant reduction in tobacco exposure. Next in importance are reductions in obesity and in heavy alcohol consumption, and certain other dietary changes. Each of these four main strategies for cancer control would also substantially reduce the burden of other non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiovascular, diabetic, renal and hepatic disease. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 12/08/11) BJC British Journal of Cancer, 12/06/11
Comment: Today, a part of the Swiss parliament (chamber of the cantons) has refused to enter into discussion of a new law on prevention. Prevention should be private. The lobbyists have worked well. (Source: parlament.ch, 12/08/11)

81 per cent of African women report themselves to be non-drinkers, says data from the World Health Surveys. This is an important fact to take into account in planning of alcohol prevention strategies and policies.

In the latest round of the WHO World Health Surveys 40.739 women from 20 African countries were interviewed also about their alcohol drinking habits. Close to 34.000 reported lifetime abstinence from alcohol. This is 81 % of the respondents in the survey. The proportion of current alcohol drinkers ranged from 1% in Malawi to 20% in Burkina Faso.

Four researchers – Priscilla Martinez, Jo Røislien, Nirmala Naidoo and Thomas Clausen – have analyzed the data from the WHO survey and presented their results in an article published in BioMed Central. They point to the fact that “Alcohol use is an important factor in any woman’s health risk profile. Harmful patterns of alcohol consumption are strongly associated with increased morbidity and mortality”.

Read the full article here.

The conclusions of the article are: “A variety of drinking patterns are present among African women with lifetime abstention the most common. Countries with hazardous consumption patterns require serious attention to mitigate alcohol-related harm. Some similarities in factors related to alcohol use can be identified between different African countries, although these are limited and highlight the contextual diversity of female drinking in Africa”.

The researchers comment their findings by writing that the current situation with low prevalence of alcohol use among women represents an opportunity to establish and promote healthy drinking habits among the vast majority of African women. This would serve the public health of African countries far into the future.

At the same time the researchers sound a warning bell related to female drinking: “This effort would be particularly relevant and timely given the current expansion of the alcohol industry in Africa. Women are a large portion of the population available for recruitment into regular drinking and will also benefit from improved economic situations, creating a ‘perfect storm’ for an increase in alcohol use and related harm. Such circumstances and increases in hazardous drinking among women have already been observed in Brazil and India”.
(Source: Dag Endal on add-resources.org, 12/05/11)