Reply to Surgeon General Warns of Connection Between Alcohol Use and Cancer

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "Surgeon General Warns of Connection Between Alcohol Use and Cancer"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s about time they make an announcement about alcohol.  Kids go crazy in college drinking and then it continues into their 20s-30s because it is the social thing to do.  ‘Let’s get drinks!’   Etc.  Yet, it’s the first question the oncologist asks when you initially get diagnosed with cancer.  ‘Do you drink and how much?’  Then, ‘Do you smoke?’  So, they have known for decades that there is a link to cancer.  Both are rough and unnatural to your body.  Just now the U.S. Surgeon General is going to label it.  [/quote]

Younger people are drinking less than previous generations https://time.com/7203140/gen-z-drinking-less-alcohol/
[/quote]

Anecdotally I see this at work. Happy hour is not as popular and even when we have one at work, there is a huge demand for nonalcoholic fun drinks.[/quote]

Everyone is drinking less.  The post war trend of binge drinking that lasted into the 2000s is over.  Even on college campuses drinking is way down.  It’s all for the better.  The high side of moderate drinking and heavy drinking is likely skewing all of these studies in a big way.  There is a level of drinking that is unquestionably bad for you and it’s becoming less and less common.

But the people who insist that it’s 0 or near 0 (2 drinks a month?) are bananas.   They started the same hysteria over lead and asbestos (any amount is toxic and will increase the chance of adverse health effects).  It’s just not true - you have environmental exposure to both substances that don’t involve a statistically significant increase in cancer.  Both substances are highly toxic and the most convincing evidence involve chronic or occupational exposure.  Further studies have shown that lower levels are also hazardous.  And that has been blown out of proportion to say, for example, a 1 time exposure to asbestos insulation makes you at risk for mesothelioma.

Public health professionals need to educate people on the science, not engage in fear based advocacy.  Look at all the stupid shit people still believe about transmitting Covid.  Like all other respiratory viruses it’s transmitted by particles expelled from the lungs and requires 15 minutes+ of direct exposure to the shared air.  COVID isn’t likely (though technically possible to demonstrate in ideal lab environments) to be transmitted via fomites, toilet plume, auto passenger air intakes, etc.  Your chances of getting it in well-ventilated or outdoor spaces, especially with passing contact, is virtually 0.

People have been brainwashed to “follow the science” but the science doesn’t say what they think it says.  They’re following the dumbed down overly simplified cliffs notes version brought to you buy public health officials and their media relations departments who are trying to alter population level health behavior through fear because they think everyone is too stupid to understand the actual studies. [/quote]

Yes, sadly people don’t understand nuance and they don’t understand that not all effects are linear.  (Eg people think if a little bit of something is good for you, lots of it must be even better!) but I think this announcement is helpful because I think a lot of people were totally unaware of the link.  I mean, you could also probably safely smoke a couple cigarettes a week for life.  But we put the warnings on the boxes because lots of people don’t stop there, they smoke a pack daily.  I know a lot of people that drink a couple drinks daily and absolutely think that’s good for them.  It’s probably not the worst thing in the world, but it’s not the best either.

And I totally agree that plastics are the bigger risk but there’s also a societal benefit to plastics that doesn’t exist for alcohol.  Is it better for people to give up eating yogurt and berries because they come in plastic?  Probably not.  I am super paranoid about plastics but I’m still buying those products.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics