The World Health Organization (WHO) is on a mission to destroy the alcohol industry, but on their quest, have they provided fuel to their critics?
WHO’s position has come so far off the center that it could be sacrificing its credibility. WHO’s radical position reminds me of my time at the University of North Carolina where I listened to an environmental group talk about their concerns. After hearing them out, they lost all perspective when they told me that in 30 years Eastern North Carolina will drown from all the pig waste from North Carolina pork farms. 30 years later the Eastern part of North Carolina still exist with pig waste present.
The point of the story is the environmental group wanted me to see a radical problem and with it a radical solution. Get rid of every pig farm in North Carolina and you would have no pig waste. And you would also have no economic strategy to replace the people working in the pork industry and would cut the supply of something that had great consumer demand.
Instead of addressing the issue with a sensible solution on how we could circumvent the potential abuses of pig farmers and investing in a solution to problem, the environmental group took the radical approach.
Problematically for this environmental advocacy group, not many people take radical and unrealistic ideas seriously, which gets us to our friends at the WHO.
The WHO has compared alcohol to asbestos and radiation.[1]
Instead of discussing the health effects of alcohol abuse and how to best deal with these issues, the WHO goes straight to the pig waste/environmental paradigm used by the out-of-touch environmentalist I encountered in Chapel Hill.
Let’s first compare asbestos to alcohol. According to the Cleveland Clinic up to 20% of all workers who breathe in asbestos will develop a disease from asbestos exposure.[2] This number is probably higher because signs of asbestos harm to the body may not show up for 30 to 40 years. Asbestos results in a nasty disease which causes the scarring of your lungs and makes it difficult to breathe. It is well researched that asbestos for many of its victims is the main cause of their suffering.
According to scientific studies, alcohol can be attributed to 3.5 to 4% of cancer deaths.[3]
So, let’s look at the differences between alcohol and asbestos. First, you are at least 5 times more likely to develop life threatening diseases with exposure to asbestos than alcohol. And that is on the conservative side, as asbestos may ferment for 30 to 40 years in your lungs, the number is probably on the low side.
Also, look at the word choice when describing the statistics. The anti-alcohol studies discuss alcohol being attributed to cancer. According to Webster’s attribute means to explain by indicating a cause. “He attributed his success to hard work.”[4]
In the Cleveland Clinic summary, it states “Some studies show that up to 20% of all workers who breathe in asbestos will develop a disease from exposure to asbestos.”
Which study provides more certainty, the one with “attributed” or the one that uses the word “will”?
So, let’s sum it up, WHO compares alcohol to an item that is at least 5 times as harmful and one where there is more certainty behind its number of victims.
Maybe there is a reason why there are asbestos lawsuit commercials and not ones for alcohol.
Next, WHO makes the absurd association of alcohol and radiation exposure. In the worst-case scenario. exposure to a high level of radiation can lead to a 50% probability of causing death within 30 days. [5] But a small exposure to radiation is not as harmful to your health and the WHO admits with small doses of radiation over a long period of time the risk is substantially low.[6] Of course the WHO covers itself that no level of radiation exposure is completely safe.[7]
It seems WHO took the radiation approach and implanted it into alcohol, where risk starts at any exposure.
But comparing alcohol to radiation is not apples to apples. Radiation is a hazardous substance and has been deemed so by numerous international and government agencies. The term radioactive means you want to stay away from something dangerous or harmful.
Alcohol that a person consumes is not considered hazardous and exposure to it is not going to be life threatening. It is how much a person chooses to consume that can cause a dilemma.
WHO vilifying the alcohol industry and classifying it in the same light as asbestos and radiation is an absurdity that insults the intelligence of the common person.
There are serious problems with some in society that abuse alcohol and that should be taken seriously and dealt with, and we should invest in programs to stem underage drinking. It is a serious issue that should be dealt with by solutions and not with hyperbole.
The WHO does a disservice to the problem by staking out a radical position. Just like the environmentalist I listened to in Chapel Hill 30 years ago, at some point they go so far, you just stop taking them seriously.
[1] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
[2] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22245-asbestosis
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/upshot/health-alcohol-cancer-research.html; https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2023/cancer-alcohol-link-public-awareness#:~:text=How%20alcohol%20causes%20cancer,linked%20to%20alcohol%20each%20year.
[4] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/attributed
[5] https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/lethal-dose-ld.html
[6] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ionizing-radiation-and-health-effects
[7] https://www.who.int/tools/occupational-hazards-in-health-sector/exposure-to-radiation#:~:text=Exposure%20to%20ionizing%20radiation%20may,radiation%20exposure%20is%20completely%20safe.
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