A UNIQUE LABELLING CAMPAIGN TO WARN ABOUT THE DANGERS OF ALCOHOL — IT WAS TOUTED AS A WORLD FIRST — HAS BEEN STOPPED BY THE YUKON GOVERNMENT AFTER THREATS FROM THE LIQUOR INDUSTRY.
It was touted as a world first: a project to put large, colourful labels on alcohol bottles to warn that drinking increases the risk of specific cancers, then study their impact. But just a few weeks into the eight-month experiment, the Yukon Liquor Corporation has abruptly put the study on ice, citing pressure from the companies whose products are at the centre of the initiative.
Industry representatives threatened to sue the territory, alleging trademark infringement and even defamation over the warning labels, say the outside researchers heading the project.
Manufacturers questioned the science linking alcohol and cancer, and took the “unprecedented” step of complaining to an administrator at the university whose respected researcher is helping oversee the project.
“They’re trying to keep consumers in the dark about things that people want to know,” said Tim Stockwell, director of the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. He led the federally financed experiment with scientist Erin Hobin of Public Health Ontario.
“I’ve always wondered … why is it consumers don’t get that (alcohol-health) information? Well, here’s the answer: Governments are afraid to give it. They get blocked. At various levels, the lobbyists are very effective.”
Luke Harford, president of the Beer Canada trade group, confirmed that his organization, the Canadian Vintners Association, and Spirits Canada all complained about the plan, which he said he first learned about through media reports. The brewers’ group didn’t threaten to sue, but raised questions on the stickers and the health assertions.
“The (cancer) label they chose to use is inaccurate and misleading,” charged Harford. “To claim that alcohol causes cancer, or can cause cancer, is not accurate … The cancer issue for any food product is way too complex an issue to be discussed on the label.”
The study was launched in late November, as staff and researchers affixed the warnings to thousands of bottles at the corporation’s Whitehorse store.
One said alcohol can cause breast, colon and other cancers, which the researchers say was unique in the world. Another label listed what are considered “safe” limits for curbing health risk: no more than two standard drinks a day for women and three for men, and two alcohol-free days a week.
Some other places — including the United States — require warnings of a sort, but typically they are small, text-only messages that address the commonly known risks of drunk driving and drinking while pregnant.
Regardless, the territory’s liquor corporation revealed just before Christmas that it had decided to halt the project because of concerns conveyed to it by the industry.
Those included whether the agency had legal authority to apply the labels, had violated trademarks, or defamed the producers, corporation spokeswoman Patch Groenewegen said Tuesday.
“The Yukon Liquor Corporation is taking these concerns seriously, and is pausing its participation in the third-party labelling study to allow time to resolve the concerns,” she said in an emailed statement. “No decision has been made to end the project.”
Harford said the brewers are worried that the label explaining the safe drinking levels could leave the impression it’s acceptable to drive after that number of drinks. Beer Canada also argues that research on the issue — mostly epidemiological studies of large populations — points to an increased risk of cancer, not causation.
But the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a UN-linked scientific body, has concluded that alcohol does trigger cancer, making it a group-one carcinogen, like tobacco and scores of other agents.
In a letter to UVic’s vice president of research, the BC Craft Brewers Guild alleged the labels contained “false, misleading and potentially dangerous information,” and that the study evaluating the label project was designed to find results that suited a particular agenda.
But Stockwell said the study was approved by ethics boards at his university and Public Health Ontario, and received Health Canada funding after a peer review.
He likened the opposition to that of tobacco companies that tried to undermine the science on smoking and lung cancer, which ultimately helped fuel massive legal awards against the firms.
Researchers are still hoping they can get the Yukon project back on track, but its sudden halt was a blow, admitted Hobin.
“I’ve invested four years of my career into this work; I am very disappointed,” she said. “Alcohol is a big part of our culture and our social pastimes. When trying to shift these very ingrained norms and behaviours, there are going to be challenges, and it’s going to take time.”
THERE ARE GOING TO BE CHALLENGES, AND IT’S GOING TO TAKE TIME.