Wisconsin proposes creating the next generation of damaged adults because profit trumps health

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R - Burlington), became the voice of reason by not throwing in with special interests' Nov. 8 attempt to lower Wisconsin's drinking age, effectively killing the proposal's future. (JournalSentinel article.) Alcohol is a toxin and known carcinogen. Instead of encouraging more people to drink by lowering the drinking age to 19, Wisconsin might want to focus on educating more kids about this drug.

The suggestions by the bill's sponsors that lowering the age to legally use this drug will save money is nearly as absurd as the concept that drinking a toxin 'in moderation' somehow has health benefits. At legal age 21, alcohol use – all alcohol use, not just drinking and driving or the disease of alcoholism – costs the economy $250 billion a year, mostly in lost productivity. That's enough to buy every man, woman, and child in the U.S. a 55-inch, HDTV for Christmas… every year. Increasing the number of legal drinkers is going to reduce the cost? A fine piece of fiction.

Of greater importance is the health impact. Increasing the drinking age was never about highway money or reducing drinking and driving, although they are lovely benefits. There are health consequences for developing brains. Cognitive damage in a developing brain lasts well past the hangover. Drinking in any amount reduces brain myelin, impairs cognitive and behavior control, and physically alter brain structure. This. Toxin. Changes. DNA. Lowering the drinking age will ultimately lead to impairments in brain function in adulthood. Since the brain's frontal lobes develop into the mid-20's, if we want to reduce social costs associated with drinking, raising the age of legal use would be more practical.

Brain damage is so significant it overshadows the cancer risk of a known carcinogen. The concern is especially acute for women drinkers of the only dietary link to an increased risk of breast cancer. The younger a woman starts, the higher the risk. Breast tissue is developing at age 21... again a case for increasing the drinking age rather than lowering it.

The public and political appetite (FYI: Beverage alcohol is among the top-spenders in elections) for raising the drinking age isn't there. And it isn't practical. What's practical is beginning alcohol education at earlier grades in the same fashion we start tobacco education. At it's simplest, it starts will calling alcohol a drug.

With that in mind, shame on the sponsors for suggesting the fictional cost savings from lowering the drinking age would be used for drug treatment. Treatment of the same drug you're peddling? Or were you only suggesting that to ride the coattails of the public interest in the opioid topic when you're fully aware that the accountability for actually spending the money for treatment doesn't exist?

Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books.  Click Alcopocalypse for the author’s 2017 Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper. Image by  Peter Lecko, used with permission.

Image by Andrew Jalbert, used with permission.

Gambling with FASD and the unborn: What. If. They're. Wrong.

A widely reported Sept. 8, 2017 analysis, based on data published in the online journal BMJ Open, indicates the possible harmful effects of light or occasional alcohol consumption during pregnancy is “surprisingly limited.” While the point of the study was that there is damage to the unborn no matter the quantity of alcohol...the article was spun up by the alcohol industry (and media in a rush to appease alcohol advertisers -- which Facebook actually did with this alcohologist.com post to kowtow to alcohol advertisers) as "there isn't much to worry about so drinking a little is ok while expecting."

That's relieving news to an expectant mom, right? What if the seemingly unchallenged and widely reported news is wrong?

The analysis is contrary to common sense, and does not mesh with pediatricians' recommendations. The American Academy of Pediatrics reiterated in a 2015 report that no amount of alcohol in any trimester is safe. Authors said in the report: First trimester drinking (vs. no drinking) produces 12 times the odds of giving birth to a child with FASD, first and second trimester drinking increases FASD odds 61 times, and drinking in all trimesters increases FASD odds 65 times. (For more on FASD, see the video below, or follow the transcript)

This new report doesn't pass the smell test and its broad distribution comes courtesy of the clout of the alcohol industry, known for distorting and denying the health consequences of the drug they manufacture. That, and a cultural willingness to believe in unicorns and other wishful thinking (see related story).  The new report was based on observational studies. Observational studies do not take into account all the other lifestyle factors of a mom-to-be. Or misinformation. Face it: When questioned by a physician – facing possible stigmatizing comments or fearing being 'reported' somewhere – what new mother is going to admit to the amount or frequency of alcohol use during pregnancy?

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are now more common than autism and a child is born with one in the range of FASDs every 4.5 minutes. There is nothing in any evidence suggesting drinking this 'safe' amount of alcohol during pregnancy will lower that statistic.

The unborn use the same blood and therefore have the same blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as the mother. The fetus lacks the ability to process the alcohol the way an adult does, so the BAC remains high for a long time, causing a number of physical, cognitive, social and neurological problems that are permanent and irreversible. And sometimes fatal. 

As many as 40,000 babies are born with an FASD annually, costing the U.S. up to $6 billion annually in institutional and medical costs. Costs of FAS alone are estimated at between 1 and 5 million dollars per child.

And what of a child exposed to alcohol in-utero who doesn't develop FASD? A 2016 study conducted by the Center for Development and Behavioral Neuroscience even suggests the child exposed to alcohol in the womb, with or without an FASD, is more prone to alcohol use disorders the rest of his or her life. Something you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy.



Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books.  Click Alcopocalypse for the author’s 2017 Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper. Image by  Peter Lecko, used with permission.

Hey, Alcohol biz: The 90's called. They want their liars back.

Sept. 2017 research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has revealed the extent to which the alcohol industry is denying alcohol's causal role in cancer. In other words, the alcohol industry has torn a page from the tobacco playbook of two decades ago to take a 3-D approach to marking a known carcinogen: Deny. Distort. Distract.

In an infamous Congressional hearing in 1994, the leaders of the tobacco industry (pictured above) swore under oath that nicotine was not addictive and that smoking did not cause cancer. Notable among them was Andrew Tisch, then CEO of the Lorriland brands of smokes. The executives denied conclusions of a consensus of independent scientists and health experts that their product caused cancer. It was later revealed that the companies knew the cancer link decades before their Congressional 'come-to-Jesus' meeting and the Tobacco Settlement three years later.

Here we are again.

Over the past two decades, numerous studies have shown a strong link between even moderate drinking and cancer. (See related A-Files segments on the cancer connection: Episode B: Breast Cancer video transcript, Episode C: Cancer video  transcript and Episode Z: Zero Health Benefit video transcript, as well as the book I Can't See the Forest With All These Damn Treesin the Way: Health Consequences of Alcohol.) Bottom line: Scientists estimate that alcohol is responsible for at least four percent of new cancer diagnoses annually. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists it as a known carcinogen. You wouldn't know it by listening to the alcohol industry. But would you really expect your mother-in-law to be a fair arbiter of your marital dispute?

The study authors looked at 30 websites from alcohol trade groups in the U.K., Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia. One – The Wine Information Council – even claimed that wine actually protects against several forms of cancer including breast, lung and kidney. Another – U.S.-based International Alliance for Responsible Drinking – said that light to moderate drinking was 'not ‘significantly' associated with an increased risk of tumors.

The authors said the tactics used by the alcohol industry were very similar to those used by tobacco firms for 50 years to play down the risk of lung cancer and were particularly misleading about the link between breast cancer. Alcohol use is the only dietary link to an increase risk of breast cancer.

Professor Mark Petticrew, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, concluded: "The weight of scientific evidence is clear that drinking alcohol increases the risk of some of the most common forms of cancer. Our analysis suggests that the major global alcohol producers may attempt to mitigate this by disseminating misleading information about cancer through their 'responsible drinking' bodies.

"This has obvious parallels with the global tobacco industry's decades-long campaign to mislead the public about the risk of cancer, which also used front organizations and corporate social activities.”

The alcohol industry response is that the research was 'misleading' and said they were already advising consumers to drink responsibly. As if it were possible to consume a toxin and carcinogen 'responsibly.' Henry Ashworth, president of the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking, said: ”We do not agree with the conclusions reached in this paper. We stand by the information that we publish on drinking and health.” That sounds an awful lot like Tisch's statement that, “Smoking does not cause cancer.”

Public awareness of alcohol/cancer connection is low. It has been argued that greater public awareness, particularly of the risk of breast cancer, poses a significant threat to the alcohol industry. So we trudge back to the 90's and dig up some lies that only flew within the board rooms and marketing departments of companies profiting from the unobstructed flow of the drug, alcohol.

Deny. Distract. Distort.

The alcohol industry has the normal duty of any manufacturer to ensure that it does not market a defective product and that its products are as safe as possible. Alcohol – a toxin and known carcinogen – is not safe in any amount, for either gender, at any age.

Scott Stevens, is the author of five alcohol books including the acclaimed Look What Dragged the Cat In: The Rise of an Opioid Crisis. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/gatewaydrug), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books.  Click Alcopocalypse for the author’s 2017 Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper. Image by Kevin Carden, used with permission.