“Connecticut Oncologists Praise Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol and Cancer Risk – Calls for Warning Labels on Beverages”

Connecticut oncologists with Yale Cancer Center are praising a report released by the Office of the Surgeon General on Friday that seeks to add a warning label on alcoholic beverages showing the direct link between drinking and fatal cancers.

Dr. Eric Winer, director of Yale Cancer Center and president and physician-in-chief of Smilow Cancer Hospital, said that decades of research have shown a direct correlation between alcohol and fatal cancers. Winer, who specializes in breast cancer research, said that he is concerned by the number of breast cancer cases related to alcohol consumption.

According to the report, there are about 100,000 alcohol-related cancer cases and about 20,000 alcohol-related cancer deaths in the U.S. each year. Alcohol is the third-leading cause of cancer in the U.S., after tobacco and obesity. The largest burden of alcohol-related cancer in the U.S. is for breast cancer in women, with an estimated 44,180 cases in 2019.

“The numbers they quote in this report show that if you’re a woman who barely drinks at all versus a woman who has a few drinks a day, the more you drink clearly raises your risks,” Winer said.

The report cites a direct link between alcohol consumption and at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colorectal, liver, and mouth cancer. Despite decades of research, the report found that public awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer is lacking.

“The risk of getting cancer from smoking is substantially greater, it’s a huge carcinogen,” said Winer. “Alcohol may not rise to the risk level of smoking and obesity, but that does not mean we should ignore it for a second.”

The current warning label on alcoholic beverages has been unchanged since 1988, with warnings about drinking while pregnant and while driving or operating machinery. The report outlined how adding a cancer warning would increase public awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer.

Along with new warning labels, the surgeon general’s report recommends reassessing the guideline limits for alcohol consumption to account for cancer risk. Current dietary guidelines recommend people drink alcohol in moderation, defined as two drinks a day for men and one drink for women.

“It’s important to recognize that alcohol isn’t just a social or recreational substance — it also carries potential carcinogenic risks, especially with chronic abuse and/or other environmental exposures like PFAS,” said Vasilis Vasiliou, chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health.

Any change to the beverage labels requires congressional authorization; pushback would be expected.

“Strengthening public health messaging, increasing research funding, and refining policy efforts can play a key role in addressing this concern,” Vasiliou added.

Overall, the report highlights the importance of understanding the link between alcohol consumption and cancer and the need for increased public awareness and policy efforts to address this issue.