www.alkoholpolitik.ch

moving towards a shared governance for health and well-being – Taking account of health – means more – effective government – More effective government – means improved health
The Adelaide Statement on Health in All Policies is to engage leaders and policy-makers at all levels of
government—local, regional, national and international. It emphasizes that government objectives are best
achieved when all sectors include health and well-being as a key component of policy development. This is
because the causes of health and well-being lie outside the health sector and are socially and economically
formed. Although many sectors already contribute to better health, significant gaps still exist. Health in All Policies, International Meeting, Adelaide 13-15 April 2010

From the content: Global alcohol strategy endorsed. – UK Government „too close to drinks industry“. – Indian Government urged to formulate National Alcohol Policy. – Articles on Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Pacific Region, etc. THE GLOBE 1/2010 online

A novel study by German researchers reported that alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking were associated with increased migraines and tension-type headaches (TTH) in high school students. Coffee drinking and physical inactivity were associated specifically with migraines. Results of this study, the first to investigate modifiable risk factors for different types of headaches in a youth population, appear online early in Headache, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Headache Society. (Source: Medical News Today, 6/7/10)

The on-line database RAYPRO (Resource on Alcohol and Youth Projects) is now accessible. (Source: EU, 6/9/10)

Some recommend drugs, vouch for studies but don’t see raw numbers
Richard Page thinks Multaq is an excellent new drug for treating atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat that affects more than 2 million Americans.
And Page, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, should know. He co-authored a large, international study that led to the drug’s approval by the Food and Drug Administration last year, a move that could mean hundreds of millions in sales for Sanofi-Aventis, the company that makes the drug.
But in putting his name on the influential paper, Page allowed Sanofi-Aventis to dictate the terms. He vouched for the accuracy and completeness of the study despite not seeing the raw data. The company, which paid for the study, collected that information and performed the analysis without an external audit for accuracy or completeness.
Page says it comes down to trusting the drug company. (Source: Harvard World Health News, 6/3/10) jsonline.com, 5/30/10 Comment: The same problem with the alcohol industry and their studies.

The global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol was adopted by consensus at the annual assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday 20 May. According to news agency Reuters health ministers agreed to try to curb binge drinking and other growing forms of excessive alcohol use through higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and tighter marketing regulations.
The WHO estimates that risks linked to alcohol cause 2.5 million deaths a year from heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides and various cancers — 3.8 percent of all deaths. It is the third leading risk factor for premature deaths and disabilities worldwide.
„Alcohol is usually not perceived as a killer, though it is,“ Shekhar Saxena, director of WHO’s department of mental health and substance abuse, told a news briefing.
Despite growing abuse and youth drinking at an earlier age in many countries, half of WHO members do not have a national alcohol policy, according to WHO expert Vladimir Poznyak.
„The biggest changes might happen in those countries which have no alcohol control institutions or regulatory framework for alcohol consumption,“ he told Reuters. The global strategy is available in the documentation from the World Health Assembly here: http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha63.html (A63/13)
The revised text of the resolution will be available on the same web page shortly. The original version recommended by the WHO Executive Board (EB126.R11) is available here: http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_eb126.html#Resolutions

Fifth Meeting of the Science Group of the European Alcohol and Health Forum, Brussels, 19 October 2009 – Summary report available

HIV disease tends to progress at a faster rate in infected individuals who consume two or more alcoholic drinks a day, according to an important new paper in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online.
The article, entitled „Alcohol Use Accelerates HIV Disease Progression,“ clearly demonstrates that frequent alcohol use, defined as two or more drinks daily, is associated with declining CD4+ cell counts (which indicate a weakened immune system) in individuals with HIV disease who either are or are not receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). (Source: Medical News Today, 5/14/10)

Our nation’s media has been flooded with reports of the brutal killing of University of Virginia senior Yeardley Love by her classmate George Huguely, both college lacrosse players who had been “in a relationship” until she broke it off several weeks ago. The tragedy adds this beautiful 22 year old to the almost 2,000 college students who will die this year as a result of violence, accidents and poisoning related to excessive drinking.
Here’s why I’m convinced that the death of campus beauty Yeardley Love is another consequence of alcohol abuse on our nation’s campuses: (Source: Chairman’s Corner, CASA Founder and Chairman Joseph A. Califano, Jr., 5/10/10

Moderate drinking could slow the progress of rheumatoid arthritis over the course of decades — not enough to make an immediate, noticable impact but perhaps beneficial in the long-term, researchers from Switzerland said in a new report. (Source: Join Together, 4/14/10) Comment: The detailed article by Reuters shows a lot of uncertainty. The motivation behind such studies is very obvious.