U.S. surgeon general explains why he’s calling for cancer warnings on alcohol

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, following tobacco use and obesity. Alcohol consumption contributes to roughly 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 deaths each year.

  And a new advisory out today from the U.S. surgeon general says alcoholic beverages should have a warning label about those risks.

  U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy joins us now to discuss.

  Welcome back to the "News Hour." Great to see you.

• Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General:

  Thanks so much, Amna. Good to be with you again.

• Amna Nawaz:

  There's a few things that really stood out to me from your findings. I just want to tick through them for our audience here.

  Number one, alcohol consumption, you found, increases the risk of at least seven types of cancer. Over 16 percent of all breast cancer cases in the U.S. in 2019 were alcohol-related. And only 45 percent of American adults are aware that consuming alcohol increases the risk of developing cancer.

  How did those numbers strike you when you came across them? And why is awareness of this link so low?

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  Well, it was very striking for me when I saw this data.

  And it became very clear to me that we have to tell people what the data is telling us and has been telling us more and more firmly for years, which is that there is a causal link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk.

  And we put out this advisory calling not only for more public education, but for a change to the alcohol warning label. There's a surgeon general's warning on alcohol bottles which currently warns people about drinking while they're pregnant and about driving or operating heavy machinery after having alcohol.

  And those two things have actually soaked into the general understanding of what we shouldn't do with alcohol. People should know about the cancer risk as well.

  But, finally, I have also called for a reassessment of the guideline limits around alcohol. Currently, people are told in the guidelines, that they should — that they can drink one drink a day if they're a woman, two drinks a day if you're a man. But we…

• Amna Nawaz:

  Right. Those are the federal recommendations, right?

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  That's correct.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  But what we have found is that, even within those limits, the risk of cancer starts to increase.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  So those need to be reassessed and revised to reflect this important and concerning risk.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Do you know what those limits should be, how they should be revised?

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  Well, they should be revised downward, is my opinion.

  And, overall, what the guidelines committee needs to do is look at the overall health impact of alcohol. But here too it's worth noting that many people were led to believe over the years, including me when I was in medical training years ago, that alcohol is unequivocally good for your heart.

  And we now know that story is actually a lot more complicated, that while there may be some benefits to some types of heart disease with moderate drinking — and that's still being investigated and adjudicated and debated — we know that there are other types of heart disease, like heart failure, for example, like atrial fibrillation, which is an abnormal heart rhythm, and even high blood pressure itself, where the risk increases with drinking.

  What we do know for certain though, or at least with a high degree of confidence, is this link between alcohol and cancer risk.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So do you see a need for alcohol to become more aggressively regulated, similar to the way we now regulate tobacco use, for example?

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  Well, I think there certainly needs to be much more public awareness.

  And I think that what we need to think about is how the overall impact of alcohol in our health should factor into decisions about how we encourage alcohol consumption. And this is, by the way, not just a regulatory matter.

  I think, from a cultural perspective, I think we also have to think about the messages that we send to people through movies, through books, through other media, that alcohol, for example, is the right way to deal with stress, or that it's the right way to deal with anxiety.

  And, look, I hear from people who sometimes say, well, this is just something that I need to cope with a very difficult time. And, listen, I get that. We live in stressful times, and there's a lot of difficult things happening in people's lives. And when you hear data like we put out today that alcohol causes cancer, it's an inconvenient, although important, truth.

  But I think that a lot of that has to shift. And what I do want people to know, individuals, is that less alcohol consumption leads to less cancer risk. And so if you're drinking one or two times a week, that's likely significantly safer from a cancer risk perspective than drinking one or two times a day.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Well, we know that new warning labels would require congressional action, right?

  Do you have any indication from — I know the incoming team, your successor, you have been in touch with as the transition unfolds. Any indication this is something they would like to push through?

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  Well, I'm certainly very open to talking to the new administration, to anyone who's interested in working on this issue.

  Here's what encourages me, though. Typically, cancer prevention has been a bipartisan issue that has received broad support. Here — and, look, there are a lot of times people get cancer, and we don't know why it happened. We don't know how it could have been prevented.

  I have, as a doctor, taken care of many patients over the years with cancer. I have seen the devastation of causes in their lives and in their family's lives as well. And, here, we have an opportunity to take steps that would reduce the risk of cancer. And that's by helping people reduce their alcohol consumption.

  So this is something that I believe we can come together around. And, in 1964, when the surgeon general issued the first surgeon general's report on tobacco, the very next year, Congress followed up by passing legislation to put a warning label on cigarette boxes. They have the power to do that here as well.

• Amna Nawaz:

  This is the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murphy.

  Always good to have you here. Thank you so much for making the time to come by.

• Dr. Vivek Murthy:

  Thanks so much for having me, Amna.

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