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The Alcohol-Cancer-Heart Disease Dilemma: Safeguard Your Heart or Get Cancer
The US Surgeon General’s recent push to classify all alcohol consumption as a carcinogen has sparked a wave of controversy.
The wine producers in France, Italy, and the USA are nervous. The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, wants a cancer warning on all bottles and cans of any alcohol sold in his country. In case you missed it, here is his statement from earlier this month:
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.”
“Sacre bleu!” they are now screaming in France's Bordeaux and Rhone regions. (For those who don’t understand French, this expresses dismay or exasperation.) To understand the magnitude of this statement, I will suggest an analogy. Imagine your shock as you devour your Big Mac and fries and see this on the paper or cardboard container:
“WARNING: eating this food has been linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.”