www.alkoholpolitik.ch

On New Year’s Day 2009, there were an estimated 1,980 emergency department visits involving underage drinking, compared to 546 such visits on an average day. That accounts for a staggering 263% increase according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking; this includes about 1,900 deaths from motor vehicle crashes, 1,600 as a result of homicides, 300 from suicide, as well as hundreds from other injuries such as falls, burns, and drowning. (Source: Medical News Today, 12/31/10)

Not a happy holiday thought, but an important one: The number of babies who die of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, surges by 33 percent on New Year’s Day. The suspected reason? Alcohol consumption by caretakers the night before.
Led by sociologist David Phillips of the University of California, San Diego, the study documenting the dramatic rise in SIDS deaths on New Year’s is published in the journal Addiction. The spike, write Phillips and his coauthors, is beyond the normal winter increase in SIDS.
The study examined 129,090 SIDS cases from 1973 to 2006 using three multiyear nationwide datasets: computerized death certificates, the linked birth and infant death dataset, and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. The authors say it is the first, large-scale U.S. study to explore possible connections between alcohol and SIDS. (Source: Medical News Today, 12/17/10)