Alcohol Policy Youth Network / Nigerian Alcohol Prevention Youth Initiative / The IFMSA and the European Alcohol and Health Forum / Jyothirgamaya: Spreading the light of awareness by Ms Deepa Nair / “Alcohol-free Boat Races: the role of youth networks and social campaigns to change social attitudes on alcohol” / Alcohol and the young brain: girls at especial risk? / Teenage alcohol consumption associated with computer use / Alcohol and Unsafe Sex / Cigarette and alcohol use at historic low among US teens / Transatlantic Cooperation to combat underage drinking

“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

Similar findings have been seen in animal studies, but this is the first time they have been observed in humans, according to a news release by the University of California, San Francisco, where the research was conducted. “This is something that we’ve speculated about for 30 years, based on animal studies, but haven’t observed in humans until now,” said lead author Jennifer Mitchell, PhD. “It provides the first direct evidence of how alcohol makes people feel good.”

Researchers studied 15 volunteers; 13 were heavy social drinkers and 12 were not. Women were considered heavy social drinkers if they consumed 10 to 16 drinks a week, while men in that category had 14 to 20 drinks weekly, CNN reports. Women who were not heavy social drinkers had fewer than five drinks a week, while the men had fewer than seven drinks. …
(Source: Join Together, 01/13/12)
Medical News Today, 01/13/12

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.

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 new report however suggests the current alcohol taxation system is not optimal and a “sensible starting point would be to tax all alcohols at an equivalent rate per unit. Such a change would require policy action at the EU level which the Government should pursue.” …

“…prefer higher and restructured alcohol taxes as an alternative to minimum pricing. At least with taxation the revenues flow to the Government rather than to the industry. Taxes that were more closely focused on the alcohol content of different products could also allow something closer to a minimum price to be introduced through the tax system, perhaps in tandem with a ban on below-tax sales.”

However Dr Petra Meier, who conducted the University of Sheffield modelling on pricing impacts has previously said both taxes and minimum pricing should be used to reduce alcohol-related harm as it should not be an ‘either or’ argument. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 12/08/11) Alcohol Policy UK, 12/06/11

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)