Should Alcohol Carry Cancer Warning Labels Like Cigarettes?

The Surgeon General thinks it should. Vivek Murthy has issued a new call for warnings on alcoholic beverages thanks to the body of evidence suggesting drinking can contribute to a variety of kinds of cancer. This is, probably, an uphill battle.

“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Murthy told the New York Times. “The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”

Murthy’s office issued a new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Friday, outlining the evidence that drinking can contribute to around 100,000 cases of cancer each year and 200,000 cancer deaths. “Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity,” the advisory says. The best evidence for the link is in seven specific cancer types: cancers of the breast, colorectal, esophageal, liver, mouth, throat, and larynx.

The call for labeling stems directly from the idea that many Americans aren’t aware of those links. The advisory cites polling showing that while 89 percent of a nationally representative survey was aware that tobacco increases cancer risk, only 45 percent knew the same about alcohol.

That survey was from 2019, though, and at least anecdotally it feels like the connection has been made a bit more clear in the public discourse in recent years. Alas, it hasn’t broken through: a 2023 survey from National Cancer Institute researchers found that more than 50 percent of American adults were unaware that alcohol can raise cancer risks. The percentages of those who did link drinking to cancer varied substantially by the specific beverages in question: 31.2 percent for liquor, 24.9 percent for beer, and 20.9 percent for wine. A decent chunk of people — 10.3 percent — said wine reduces cancer risk.

Though warning labels on booze relating to pregnancy and driving risks have been around for decades, very few countries require anything specifically related to cancer. At the moment it’s just South Korea and liver cancer, with Ireland scheduled to add labels about “fatal cancers” in 2026.

There is, obviously, quite a lobby out there that will oppose any change to labeling. It is a fool’s errand to wonder how teetotaling incoming president Donald Trump or his lunatic selection to run the Department of Health and Human Services will handle this, but from a public health perspective, it’s at very least a good thing to start increasing overall public awareness that these links are out there.