Cancer warning labels could be coming to alcoholic beverages near you
Fifteen words are roiling the global alcohol industry.
Beginning in 2026, containers of beer, wine and liquor sold in Ireland will be required by law to bear a label in red capital letters with two warnings: “There Is a Direct Link Between Alcohol and Fatal Cancers” and “Drinking Alcohol Causes Liver Disease.”
The requirement, signed into law last year, is backed by decades of scientific research and goes much further than any country has thus far communicated the health risks of alcohol consumption. It has sparked fierce opposition from alcohol businesses worldwide, but it is also inspiring a push in some other countries to pursue similar measures.
“It’s an important step,” said Dr. Timothy Naimi, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria. “People who drink should have the right to know basic information about alcohol, just as they do for other food and beverage products.”
In Thailand, the government is in the final stages of drafting a regulation requiring alcohol products to carry graphic images accompanied by text warnings such as “alcoholic beverages can cause cancer,” according to The Bangkok Post.
A bill has been introduced in the Canadian Parliament that would require labels on all alcoholic beverages to communicate a “direct causal link between alcohol consumption and the development of fatal cancers.”
This month, the Alaska Legislature held a committee hearing on a bill that would require businesses selling alcohol to post signs carrying a cancer warning.
Ireland has been a trailblazer in setting aggressive public health policies before. In 2004, it became the first country to ban smoking in indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants, a policy since adopted in more than 70 countries. The warning label requirement for alcohol could be the start of a similar change in how beverages are packaged, and a vehicle for raising awareness about the dangers of drinking, however small the amount.
Long fight
The evidence linking drinking and cancer is well established. In 1988, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that alcohol is carcinogenic to humans. Research in the decades since has only strengthened the conclusion, including for breast, liver, colorectal and esophageal cancers. In November, the WHO and the IARC declared in a joint statement: “No safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers can be established.”
Despite this, the connection between alcohol and cancer isn’t well known. In the United States, a recent nationwide survey found that about 1 in 3 Americans was aware that drinking increased the risk of cancer.
Globally, only one-fourth of countries require any kind of health warning on alcohol, according to a recent study, and the mandated language is generally imprecise. The United States last altered its warning labels in 1989, when it introduced language that discouraged drinking during pregnancy, or before driving or operating heavy machinery, and that vaguely acknowledged that alcohol “may cause health problems.”
It took more than a decade for Ireland’s labeling requirement to become a reality, according to Sheila Gilheany, CEO of the advocacy organization Alcohol Action Ireland, who described it as “the most contested piece of legislation in Irish history.” She said the effort began in 2012, when a steering group assigned to address the country’s high rate of alcohol-related deaths recommended a raft of measures, including warning labels.
Many of the recommendations