OLD CIDER IN NEW BOTTLES

Back in February 2012 Alcohol Concern published a report titled ‘White Cider and Street Drinkers’ which highlighted the impact these drinks have on homeless drinkers. Earlier this month the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA), an umbrella organisation that represents around 40 bodies from “public health” which consistently demonise alcohol and seek to de-normalise its use, have published a piece of faux research that generated headlines like “Alcohol continues to be sold at pocket money prices – AHA report finds”. And what alcohol are they referring to? You guessed it – white cider.

The AHA partner-organisations involved in preparing this report were the Institute of Alcohol Studies; Alcohol Focus Scotland; Balance, the Northeast Alcohol Office; and Healthier Futures. So what did this bunch of neo-temperance nannies actually do? Apparently they visited a range of off-sales premises “looking for the nation’s cheapest booze” - nothing like starting with a conclusion and then selecting evidence to ‘prove’ it – all in the name of science of course! Over 500 products were examined, but despite this they highlighted only one - white cider, which they described as “dominating the market for cheap, high-strength drinks”. And they went on to say that “High-strength white cider products, which are predominantly drunk by dependent and underage drinkers, are sold for as little as 16 pence per unit of alcohol”. The report goes on to dramatize the problem further by stating “For the cost of a standard off-peak cinema ticket you can buy seven and a half litres of 7.5% ABV white cider containing as much alcohol as 53 shots of vodka”.

So, what is the purpose of this report – what does the AHA hope to achieve? The demands made by the AHA on the back of this report are for government:

• To increase the duty on high-strength cider
• Reinstate the alcohol duty escalator
• Upon leaving the EU, tax all alcoholic drinks categories in proportion to their strength, and
• Implement a minimum unit price on all alcoholic drinks

The AHA’s strategy today is exactly the same as Alcohol Concern’s strategy back in 2012: to selectively demonise drinks’ categories that have only marginal market penetration, link them to groups of ‘vulnerable drinkers’, and then leverage the demand for alcohol restrictions on a much wider scale. Remember ‘alcopops’ and ‘vulnerable young drinkers’? Even at its peak this category accounted for less than 3.5% of the total volume of alcohol consumed in the UK. Remember ‘toffee vodka’ aimed apparently at ‘vulnerable young girl drinkers’? 

And if white cider is “dominating the market for cheap, high-strength drinks” the AHA forgets to mention that this category accounts for about a tenth of one percent of the total volume of alcohol sold in the UK. Yet these categories are held up as typical examples of a drinks’ industry out of control and unconcerned about the social impact of its products – and therefore “something must be done”.

Typically, the AHA links the demand for higher taxes for white cider to higher taxes for all ciders, which would involve levelling-up cider duties to match beer duty rates. We surely need to separate the lower taxes that are designed to protect our indigenous cider industry from the purchase of the cheap, foreign apple concentrate that is used in the production of super-strength white cider. Demonising drinks’ categories by reference to ‘vulnerable groups’ is a way of emotionalising the issues and softening up political and public opinion for further restrictions on all drinks and all drinkers.

Whilst I am neither a drinker, nor a defender of these particular ciders, I think we should be wary of those who proffer simple solutions to complex problems. Dependent drinking isn’t caused by the availability of a particular ‘problem drink’; it is highly linked to depressive illnesses and other mental health problems as well as a complex set of other social and psychological issues. The desire of dependent drinkers to numb this pain doesn’t go away if you ban or tax a particular drinks’ product. There will always be a substitute, whether it’s an alcoholic one or some other substance. And as for white cider being a favourite tipple of underage drinkers, curiously that was never mentioned in Alcohol Concern’s report in 2012, but maybe they missed a trick. Before anguished, hand-wringing meddlers cry “what about the children” they should perhaps remember that underage drinking is in sharp decline and the vast majority of underage drinkers get their booze from their parents or steal it from home.

Paul Chase

HANDS-OFF OUR PUDDINGS!

According to ‘The Times’ Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, recently told a private meeting with 100 food producers that eating out is “no longer a treat” and that chain restaurants, takeaways and fast food retailers should reduce the size of their puddings, cakes and pastries – and those that don’t will be publicly named and shamed! It is hard to think of a more egregious example of nanny-state meddling than this. But what is this based on and how will it work?

Apparently consumers will be able to check companies’ efforts on a website, although exactly how comparisons will be made has yet to be decided. This comes alongside food producers being asked to cut sugar in key products by 20% over the next five years, and the introduction of the sugar levy on soft drinks’ producers, due to come into effect in 2018. This is all about the government and Public Health England engaging in the ‘war on sugar’ in order to combat the ‘obesity epidemic’. Simply giving people information and letting them make a free choice is no longer enough - “Doing nothing is not an option”, Hunt said.

So, let’s just look at a couple of facts. There is no doubt that adult obesity has increased over the past 40 years across the world. The number of people in the UK with a body mass index over 30 has risen from 8% of the population to around 30%. Obesity is strongly associated with a number of chronic illnesses, particularly type-2 diabetes, although obesity is by no means the only cause. The question at issue here is how strongly is sugar consumption implicated in the rise in obesity and its related diseases? It is not so long ago that the fat content of our diet was regarded as the main cause of obesity, since when dietary fads such as the Atkins Diet have suggested that carbohydrates, which break down into sugars, are now regarded by many as the new ‘bad guy’ on the block.

Sugar consumption peaked in the UK in 1961 at just over 50 kilograms per capita. Today it is just over 30 kilograms, so the rise in obesity has correlated with a fall in the consumption of sugar added to our diets, including the sugar added to dessert products. But all sugars are not the same. Or are they? Insofar as blood sugar levels are a health worry, it is important to note that the blood sugar concerned, glucose, is not the same as the sugar we add to our tea or coffee, which is sucrose. Sucrose is a combination of two simpler sugars - glucose and fructose - which are separated when sucrose is digested. A great deal of concern has also been expressed about the use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), but EU regulations strictly control HFCS production so it is far less commonly used in the UK than it is in the United States.

Whilst sucrose is an important source of glucose in the Western diet it is by no means the only one. Foods high in starch such as potatoes, rise, pasta and bread also break down into sucrose once consumed. So, even without food products that contain added sugar the switch from diets high in saturated fats to ones high in carbohydrates – which was official advice for nearly 40 years – will have increased our consumption of sugar.

A lot of the government policies in relation to diet and disease seem to reflect the views of noisy campaign groups like ‘Action on Sugar’. The justification they provide for government intervention is that ‘Big Food’ and ‘Big Sugar’ (like ‘Big Alcohol’) are engaged in a deliberate strategy of addiction. Sugar, according to Robert Lustig, the activist academic behind Action on Sugar, is an addictive substance and much of our food, particularly processed foods, is deliberately spiked with sugar to keep us hooked. And of course alcohol is an addictive substance too! This fantasy of a conspiracy of addiction leading to a form of covert corporate coercion is the basis on which groups like Action on Sugar seek to persuade government that people don’t really make free choices when they buy Jamie Oliver’s Eton Mess, or a can of cola.

It seems to me that people have plenty of information about the content of what they eat and drink and that there are a wide variety of ‘healthy choices’ available to them. Government intervention is only justified if there is a failure of the market to provide either information or choice and that is clearly not the case.  But that won’t stop nanny wagging her finger! Now, where did I put my pack of M&M’s?

Paul Chase

FABRIC AND THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL CONTROL IN THE NIGHT-TIME ECONOMY

The revocation of Fabric nightclub’s licence throws into sharp relief the blurred line between operator responsibility and personal responsibility. The closure followed the deaths of two young customers as a result of drugs allegedly taken and bought in the club. In addition to these deaths the licensing committee also found numerous breaches of licensing conditions, and in effect stated that the evidence pointed to security staff at the club turning a blind eye to drug taking and drug dealing on the premises. If Fabric appeals against the revocation decision we will no doubt see the truth of these allegations rigorously tested in court.

Fabric has a world-wide reputation and the case gained publicity because of a petition against the club’s closure signed by over 150,000 people; and even the Mayor of London expressed the hope that the club’s management and the authorities could find a way of working together that would enable the club to stay open. Clearly many people have great affection for Fabric and feel that the club shouldn’t be blamed for the tragedy of these deaths - because they are symptomatic of a much bigger societal problem that can’t be solved by a nightclub’s management, no matter what systems and procedures they put in place. And in particular, critics of the licensing authority’s decision to revoke say “don’t blame the music”!

The British Drugs Survey tells us:

• 15 million 16 - 44 year-olds have taken drugs – 31% of adult population
• 50% of 16 – 34 year-olds have taken drugs
• 23% of drug-takers use daily – 3.45 million
• 15% weekly – 2.25 million
• 7% monthly – 1.05 million
• A total of 6.75 million people regularly use – 45% of all drug users
• 16% of all users take drugs mostly in the NTE – That’s 2.4 million customers or 35.5% of regular users

The numbers above suggest to me that there is an entire generation of people who are no longer content that their only intoxicants should be alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. For many people taking drugs is part of a night out – whether we like it or not. But drug users in the night-time economy are not a homogenous group. They don’t all take the same drugs, or combination of drugs, and the dose will vary too. Just as not every drinker is a binge drinker, so not every drug user will be looking to take things to the max!

A spectrum exists, and at one end of it is the person who goes out on a Friday night with a gram of cocaine in their pocket and every 20 to 30 minutes they will visit the toilets and snort a line. For that person drug use is a part of, but only a part of, a night out. At the other end of the spectrum are drug users who go out once a week with the intention of getting ‘messed-up’. These are users who will take a combination of ‘M-Cat’ (mephadrone), ‘geebs’ (gamma-hydroxy buterate), ‘Ket’ (Ketamine – a horse sedative) and whatever chemical combination that might be getting sold as ‘ecstasy’ this week.

Police officers are generally realistic and know that it is impossible to entirely eliminate drug use from late-night premises. What attracts a drugs raid and then an expedited review and closure is when what is going on privately become blatantly obvious and public. Stopping that from happening is the job of management and for night-clubs in particular it involves management walking a tightrope. If you can’t entirely eliminate drug use from your premises, but you at least need to keep it down to a level where the police will accept that you’re making a proper attempt to address the problem, where is the line that divides one from the other?

Night-clubs attract particular attention because of three things: firstly, they are often the biggest venue in a town centre; secondly, they are the last port of call for people on a night out; and thirdly they attract an audience with a longer dwell-time than a bar which has a constantly shifting population, and a big through-put of people. And here’s where an operator needs to think very carefully about what kind of audience they are attracting. The music policy will determine the audience. That said, unless you are constantly playing the musical score from The Sound of Music, there will be some drug users in your audience. But are there some forms of music that attract a high percentage of the sort of extreme drug users that only want to listen or dance to the music when they are in an altered state of consciousness? And are we burying our heads in the sand if we think the control problems that throws up can be managed in a way that maintains the confidence of the police?  

I don’t think the law that prohibits drug use is likely to change any time soon – if ever. In the meantime society needs an honest conversation about drugs if we aren’t to lose even more young lives and iconic music venues.

A LESSON FROM HISTORY NOT LEARNT

The era of the legal prohibition of alcohol in the United States that lasted from 1920 to 1933 is both the subject of history and the stuff of legend. The era of the cultural prohibition of alcohol in the United Kingdom that began in 2005, and hasn’t yet ended, has a history up to this point, but will probably never create an Al Capone to compete with the American legend. But there are lessons to be learnt from both.

The main lesson from the American experience is that the law cannot successfully suppress a mass market in an open society. The attempt to do so led to the corruption of police, judges, politicians and public officials on a massive scale. It led to the rampant gangsterism that spawned Al Capone and helped finance the Cosa Nostra’s diversification into illegal drugs. Drinking alcohol didn’t fall by much either, although the quality of it did; some 10,000 people are thought to have died from drinking poisonous moonshine during America’s era of prohibition.

Lesson learnt? Well, not quite. India is now embarking on an experiment in alcohol prohibition that is truly breath-taking in scale. More than 200 million Indians now live in ‘dry’ states where the sale of alcohol is banned. That’s approximately twice the population of the United States in 1920. I say “embarking on”, but in the state of Gujurat alcohol has been banned since 1958, but contraband alcohol is readily available there. A thriving industry making moonshine that has become established, as well as bootleggers smuggling in alcohol from ‘wet’ states, ensures that Gujurat’s booze ban is ineffective. 

But the ban has been spreading rapidly. Bihar, India’s third most populous state, brought in a complete ban on the consumption of alcohol in April this year. And, no doubt learning the lessons of Gujurat, they don’t mess about when it comes to deterrent punishments. You can now be sentenced to death in Bihar if you make or sell alcohol, and you can be sentenced to life imprisonment for drinking it! And the state authorities aren’t above instituting a bit of collective punishment either. The new law holds all family members over 18 years old guilty if anyone has been drinking in a house, and you can get up to 10 years for failing to inform police of an offence. Despite these draconian punishments it seems alcohol is still widely available in Bihar.

It appears India has a growing alcohol problem even though only about a third of Indians drink. Mostly Indians consume spirits, and an increasing number of people just drink to get drunk. Sound familiar? The impetus for legal prohibition has come from women’s groups and ambitious local politicians – just as it did in America with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and agitation from local political activists. It seems many more will die or be imprisoned before the outcome of this experiment in prohibition is determined. I think one of the reasons why successive generations have to relearn the lessons of history is that very few people read history any more. Watch this space.

In the UK anti-alcohol health zealots know they can’t call for the outright legal prohibition of alcohol because the public will then recognise them for the cranks they are. So, in the UK over the past 10 years we have seen a much more subtle campaign of cultural prohibition by stealth. This has culminated in the Chief Medical Officers’ new, low risk drinking guidelines of 14 units a week – approximately three quarters of a pint of beer a day. Protests by trade organisations and published research by Camra detailing the rejection of this advice by GP’s and the public at large has convinced the government to soften the language around this. So, out goes “there is no safe level of consumption” and in comes “the risks are similar to that of driving a car”. 

But our cultural prohibitionists haven’t finished yet. The media around the CMO’s drinking limits is all about establishing the link between alcohol and cancer as a means of discouraging people from drinking. And experience in other contexts shows this works. Do you remember the headline a couple of years ago “A bacon sandwich a day raises your risk of colon cancer”? Recently published research shows that this had an extraordinary effect on public perception and levels of consumption (of bacon). 

A World Health Organisation report that classified processed meat such as bacon and sausages as carcinogens had a big impact. A survey showed that nearly 50% of people in all age groups were aware of this conclusion and around a third of people said they were trying to cut down on consumption. And this was reflected in sales figures. In the four weeks subsequent to the publication of the WHO’s report and the headlines accompanying it, sales of packs of bacon in the UK fell by 8.5% and this appears to have been a stepped change that hasn’t reversed itself.

Anti-alcohol campaigners have latched onto this tactic and you can expect lots more junk science linking alcohol with cancers even though the evidence is extraordinarily weak. The temperance movement is quite prepared to tell “noble lies” if it advances their cause. The lesson we need to learn is that we have to engage the drinker in the alcohol debate. When we do, government backtracks. I have written a lengthy piece on alcohol and cancer in CPL’s magazine Aspire. Do have a read.

The British art of compromise

Joe Gormley, the old miners’ leader, once said: “When you negotiate wi’ employer, we start over here (gestures left), and employer starts over there (gestures right) and then we walk towards each other. The trick is to walk slower than them beggars!”

The implicit assumption of Gormley’s view of negotiation is that reasonable people in conflict will always find an accommodation; a middle ground; be able to split the difference. This appears to be wishful thinking when it comes to the conflict between the food and drinks industries and so-called “public health”. Recent developments in relation to the childhood obesity strategy and the sugar tax, and an apparent softening of the rhetoric in relation to the new low-risk drinking guidelines illustrate this perfectly.

Sugar and spice

In the past week it appears the government’s childhood obesity strategy has been watered down – to the evident outrage of campaigners for whom any compromise is tantamount to a sell-out. The sugar levy remains but as a tax on fizzy drinks producers, rather than retailers. It would have been hard for the government to renege on this because it’s a revenue-raiser announced in the budget, and they’ve pledged to spend the money on school sports. But most of the other measures demanded by “public health” campaigners – regulation to force mass reformulation of products to reduce sugar, salt and fat content; reductions of so-called junk food advertising directed at children; and to limit supermarket promotions on “unhealthy foods” have all been left out of the government’s strategy.

Instead, the government has set out a voluntary approach – for example, asking producers to reduce sugar content by 20% over five years – with the implicit threat of regulation if they don’t. This is similar to Andrew Lansley’s “industry responsibility deal”, in which drinks producers promised and succeeded in removing a billion units of alcohol from the market. In fact they removed 1.2 billion units – and ahead of time. But health zealots hate private sector solutions to public health problems and have constantly tried to say this initiative didn’t work. Nothing but regulations and bans ever work for them.

Predictably, Jamie Oliver, who campaigned for a wide range of coercive regulatory measures to combat the “obesity epidemic”, was said to be “in shock” at this government sell-out to “Big Food”. Equally predictably, Dr Sarah Wollaston, Conservative MP for Totnes and parliamentary nanny in chief, was appalled by this watering-down process. Perhaps she needs to understand that, unlike her, prime minister Theresa May might just turn out to be a conservative. Certainly May seems to have an instinctive dislike of nanny state measures and is disinclined to view the food and drinks producers as capitalist bad-guys intent on the mass promotion of industrial disease.

For “public health”, Big Food is intent on hooking people on “unhealthy foods” by adding “addictive ingredients” such as sugar and salt. It’s all a conspiracy you see. So, no kind of compromise is ever going to appease them.

No safe level of drinking

An apparent softening of the official line on the new, “low-risk” drinking guidelines published by the chief medical officers of health in March this year has also been reported in the press. While the unisex drinking guideline of 14 units a week remains, along with the “there is no safe level of (alcohol) drinking” mantra, the government is keen to damp down the rhetoric. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt will “give context about not preventing people from enjoying a drink” and say that while there is no totally safe limit of alcohol consumption, the risk is no higher than other everyday activities such as driving a car. Rhetorically this is a long way from CMO Dame Sally Davies’ claim that she thinks of the increased risk of cancer every time she reaches for a glass of wine.

The government seems to have accepted that the science underpinning the new guidelines is correct and the message just needs to be spun differently. But the science isn’t correct and the government should instigate an independent review and a call for evidence. Such a move would probably lead to Dame Sally Davies’ resignation, and the government clearly doesn’t want to be at the centre of another row where they are depicted as being on the side of “Big Alcohol”. The drinks industry nevertheless points out that the government champions British exports of products such as Scotch whisky abroad, while condemning alcohol as a health risk at home.

We are a long way from Joe Gormley’s vision of warring parties walking towards each other. Instead, in relation to the obesity strategy and the softening of the rhetoric around the drinking guidelines, we have that most British of solutions: a government compromise that pleases no one.

THE SILLY SEASON HAS COME EARLY THIS YEAR!

The Silly Season: it happens every year and usually coincides, for some reason, with the party political conference season. This year it has come a little early. 

First, a little levity: the Palace of Westminster in which our MPs sit is a wonderful Gothic building; but it’s crumbling and needs more than just running repairs. Some may see this as a metaphor for our entire political system. When you look at the political events since the Brexit vote, and the state of turmoil in the political parties, it’s enough to drive MPs to drink!

And therein lies a tale. MPs are due to move out of their offices to enable much-needed reconstruction to the Palace of Westminster that will commence in 2020 and last for six years. However, the Department of Health offices they will move into are in a building called Richmond House which is held under an Islamic bond scheme that forbids the sale of alcohol. So, where will our heroic representatives of the people go for a little taxpayer-subsidised libation when the House of Commons ceases to be the best gentlemen’s club in London? Well, there is a nice little pub between the two buildings called the Red Lion, and it has been reported that nationalising it in order to reserve it for MP’s use was on the agenda. Fortunately the owners have refused to sell.

There is more than a little irony to all this. There has been a growing tendency to denigrate alcohol and to favour a temperance approach among some parliamentarians; well MPs, be careful what you wish for, a little Islamic teetotalism might be just what you need – remember what Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said “there is no safe level of alcohol consumption” - so prepare to set a good example.

Meanwhile there is a House of Lords all party committee looking into the workings of the Licensing Act 2003. How is the Act doing? Do we need more licensing objectives? How about one on ‘health and wellbeing’ or one that requires licensees to ‘promote equality’? They can’t leave it alone can they? I do suspect that this committee is really about banging the health drum and calling for a health licensing objective, but I could be wrong. 

But the House of Lords seems particularly exercised by alcohol at the moment. Lord Tariq Ahmad, our unelected new Aviation Minister, is concerned about incidents involving drunken people at airports or on board flights; to the extent that he is looking at restricting the hours of opening of airport pubs and bars. Helpfully he has said “I don’t want to end merriment altogether”. So, just a bit then? And on what basis does he consider this to be a problem? There are approximately 241 million people going in or out of UK airports every year. A FOI request by the Press Association revealed that there had been just 442 drunken incidents at UK airports in 2015 – just 0.0001% of the total throughput – time for a moral panic then!

Our politicians’ attitude to alcohol at both national and local level has historically been driven by paternalism. Some people feel quite nostalgic about this. So, July saw a spate of articles about the ‘Carlisle Experiment’. In July 1916, while the Battle of the Somme was raging, a new pub opened in Carlisle called the Gretna Tavern; it was our first nationalised pub. The Defence of the Realm Act was then used extensively to create a Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) and to nationalise five breweries in Carlisle as well as 235 pubs in the Carlisle, Gretna and Annan area. In 1917 pubs in the Enfield Lock area of London and Invergordon in Scotland were taken over. In all some 363 pubs were nationalised over 300 square miles either side of the English-Scots border around Solway Firth, where a giant munitions factory was being built; the idea was to keep the munitions workers sober and turning up on time for work.

The Central Control Board then took an axe to licences, with 40% of all alcohol licences in the area being declared ‘redundant’, including all grocers’ off-licences. Some authors today see this as a noble experiment to ‘civilise’ the pub; they suggest this was a successful example of nationalisation because the Central Control Board made a profit out of these pubs for every year it ran them. Well, I guess if you can buy a packet of already profitable pubs using taxpayers’ money, and then use your legal powers to close down most of the competition to them, that might give you a flying start!

Since the Labour Party appears to be undergoing a terrible attack of socialism at the moment, I wonder whether Diane Abbott might have a little word with Jeremy and see if he would like to nationalise some pubs along with the railways. Peoples’ quantitative easing; the peoples’ railways; the peoples’ pubs. You never know. It all depends on how long this year’s Silly Season lasts.

NETFLIX CAUSES CANCER

‘Netflix causes cancer’ is the title of an article written by Hank Campbell, who is the President of the American Council on Science and Health. It’s a satirical title of course, and the article that followed was designed to show how epidemiology can prove that almost anything can either cause cancer, or protect against it, which is why epidemiology is an excellent vehicle for creating moral panics about alcohol, amongst other things. My article today relates back to my last blog for Propel Opinion in which I referred to an opinion piece in the journal Addiction, in which the author wrote about alcohol as a cause of cancer at seven different sites in the human body. There was nothing new in this article, but the media picked up on it and declared it was a new study. The headline read: “Finally proof that alcohol causes cancer”, when in fact it was just an article, an opinion piece.

Hank Campbell, in his article, had this to say: “You may have seen renewed recent media claims that alcohol is linked to cancer, based on a new commentary in Addiction. While overuse of alcohol can certainly cause something like fatty liver disease and then cirrhosis, so can too many cheeseburgers. Lots of things can be harmful when misused, that is why the American Council on Science and Health talks about dose-response when environmentalists only want to talk about hazard.”

And then this: “It has been commonly established in longitudinal studies that alcohol in moderation has some positive effects, like with cardiovascular disease risk, but then some meta-analyses say it causes cancer. Which is it? If you are in the media, it doesn’t matter; you write about both as the Big Story. Many of us are reductionists; we want to eliminate bad luck and true randomness as much as possible, so we try to find cause and effect for everything. Which is why we love to read articles claiming X is a Miracle Product or later that X will Cause Cancer – and we do, over and over, like last week with alcohol causing cancer. Again.”

And then he goes on to give a template for how activist academics can misuse science to get publicity for their pet cause by following a well-tried template. Here’s how it works, the way to show Netflix causes cancer in 10 easy steps:

1. Get a random sample of 1,000 people and ask them to recall their viewing habits
2. Find out how many watch Netflix
3. Find out which disease they share in common
4. Do some data-dredging and use the seductive certainty of significance to suggest that your p-value is relevant
5. Pay to publish it in an open access journal, or find a niche relevant journal desperate for impact factor
6. Pay AAAS Eurekalert to carry the press release
7. Answer emails from harried science journalists writing three articles that day. Send snappy quotes about implications for longevity. Slate, Vox, etc. then write blog posts about the newspaper articles and then Inquisitr, Mashable, etc. rewrite those blog posts
8. Someone writes a New York Times bestselling book based on it
9. Academics needing R01 grants rush to produce papers validating the claims in the book
10. Academics like Marion Nestle write about all of the new papers and declare anyone disagreeing is a shill for Big Streaming.

There you have it. Your first epidemiology paper. And this will get read, because a lot of people have Netflix.

My point in quoting this article is to illustrate how activist academics exploit fear of cancer in relation to alcohol precisely in order to generate headlines and to justify the “there is no safe level of alcohol consumption” narrative. Below is a graphic which illustrates the distribution of studies that show how what we eat either causes or protects against cancer:

I’ll never believe an epidemiologist again!

Paul Chase