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JAY GOLDBERG: Health officials make right call on Brazeau’s booze cancer warning labels bill

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Senator Patrick Brazeau’s personal crusade against alcohol ran into a wall last month when the health ministry refused to back his bill that would have put cancer warning labels on alcohol bottles. That’s according to the Postmedia Network and originally reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

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Brazeau’s latest anti-alcohol bill, S-202, would have put cancer warning labels on alcohol packaging.

JAY GOLDBERG: Health officials make right call on Brazeau’s booze cancer warning labels bill Back to video

In a briefing note, the health ministry argued the government supports increased public awareness about alcohol use but would not support the idea of warning labels.

What’s behind Brazeau’s failed warning labels push? His claims linking cancer to alcohol use are based on the same flawed messaging from the Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), which has argued there is “no safe level” of consumption when it comes to alcohol.

What’s the scientific basis behind those claims?

The CCSA points to data that shows an uptick in cancer rates that represents nothing more than a rounding error. For instance, a male who drinks two alcoholic beverages per day has an increased cancer risk of 1/100th of a per cent.

For that marginal of an increased risk, the health ministry wisely concluded there is no justification for putting cancer warning labels on beer cans and wine bottles.

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Life is full of risks, and one can’t put a warning label on absolutely everything.

Driving is riskier than not getting into a car. Swimming is riskier than staying on dry land. That doesn’t mean cars and swim shorts ought to come with warning labels highlighting increased risk.

Yes, there should be public health warnings in some cases. But the evidence must be clear and overwhelming. For instance, being a regular smoker means you’re at an increased risk of getting cancer of 2,400%. Those numbers truly justify warning labels.

To put cancer warning labels on alcohol bottles and equate drinking with smoking would simply undermine the credibility of public health warnings.

The facts actually show drinking alcohol in moderation can improve certain health outcomes, particularly heart disease. For example, men who have two drinks per week are at a lower risk of ischemic heart disease, which kills more Canadians than all the cancers cited in the CCSA study combined.

But you don’t see the senator from Quebec hollering for putting labels on alcoholic beverages indicating the positive effects of alcohol use, do you?

The question that should be asked is why Brazeau seems to be on such a fervent anti-alcohol crusade, particularly given that he relies on such shoddy evidence.

Brazeau has said publicly that this push has everything to do with his own personal experience with alcohol.

“Personally, you know, it led me down a very, very, very dark path, so dark that I wanted to put an end to my life,” said Brazeau.

Brazeau’s motivation for putting cancer warning labels on alcohol bottles seems to be his own personal struggles. But just because one senator couldn’t drink alcohol in moderation doesn’t mean the entire country should be sent into a tizzy about a non-existent public health crisis.

Brazeau should be proud that he’s overcome his own personal addiction struggles. But that doesn’t mean he should be trying to base public health policy on one man’s personal journey.

Public health policy must be based on solid evidence. If the public is going to be warned something can cause an increased risk of cancer, that warning needs to be based on solid evidence with clear data to back up the claim. In this case, the data simply isn’t there.

The health ministry made the right call by rejecting Brazeau’s bill. There is no solid evidence out there to show moderate alcohol consumption leads to an increased risk of cancer. Putting warning labels on alcohol bottles would have misled the public and undermined the credibility of our public health system.

Given the health ministry’s rejection of Brazeau’s bill, senators ought to reject it resoundingly if it ever comes up for a vote.

Jay Goldberg is the Canadian Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Center

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