There Could Soon Be A New Warning Label on New York Alcohol

Your next bottle of alcohol in New York could be coming with a new cancer warning label on it.

Breaking news on this Friday morning. The Surgeon General of the United States has put out a statement saying that they would like labels to be included on alcoholic beverages that warn the general public about the potential risk of cancer from consuming it.

This advisory comes as alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the US. The other two preventable causes of cancer are tobacco and obesity. They say that more than 740,000 cancer cases around the world are attributed to alcohol use in 2020.

The statement from the Surgeon General states:

Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.

Dr. Vivek Murthy said that he is calling on congress to authorize and update to the Surgeon General's warning label on alcohol. He is also calling to revise the amount of alcohol you can consume before it becomes a cancer risk.

For individuals, be aware that cancer risk increases as you drink more alcohol. As you consider whether or how much to drink, keep in mind that less is better when it comes to cancer risk.

Along with the new label they would like that label to be more visible on products that are attributed to causing cancer.