I know that this program wasn't a direct liver related subject but the BBC’s Panorama program did inspire a healthy debate. For those who are not interested in alcohol-related liver disease. Please ignore this post.
An article that has been published in the Lancet a few days ago makes for some upsetting reading. I apologise for the length of this article.
Britain’s Drink Problem, the episode of BBC’s Panorama that aired on June 10, 2019, highlighted the UK Government’s continuing failure to take effective action to address the worrying rates of alcohol harm in the country. As the Lancet Standing Commission on Liver Disease in the UK has documented, the level of deaths and illness from alcohol are concerning; there were 1·1 million hospital admissions related to alcohol in England during 2016–17 and 7697 alcohol specific deaths in the UK in 2017. Effective measures to reduce alcohol-related harms include regulation of price through minimum unit pricing, increasing alcohol duty, and regulation of all alcohol marketing.
Yet Matt Hancock, the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said that he was “dead against minimum unit pricing”. Since 2012, UK alcohol duties have been reduced in real terms and the UK Government has failed to develop a coherent alcohol strategy. At the same time, alcohol treatment services, largely devolved to cash-strapped local authorities, are under increasing pressure.
The UK Government has abdicated responsibility, relying on voluntary schemes based on industry goodwill rather than evidence-based policies. The bizarre position on alcohol labelling in the UK, highlighted by Panorama, reveals the flaws of this voluntary approach: there is more nutritional information (including calories) on a typical container of milk than on a bottle of wine. Furthermore, having tasked the Chief Medical Officers to revise the low-risk drinking guidelines on the basis of best available and most up-to-date evidence, the UK Government has not required the alcohol industry to display this information on their products. As a result, most alcohol labels do not show the updated 2016 drinking guidelines.
The alcohol industry cannot be relied on to promote public health—it goes too strongly against its commercial interests. With 68% of alcohol sales revenue in England in 2013–14 coming from drinking above low-risk drinking guideline levels, the industry is financially dependent on heavy and harmful drinkers. The alcohol industry has aggressively resisted the most effective policies to reduce harm—for example, through fierce lobbying of the UK Government into a U-turn on minimum unit pricing in 2012 and using legal challenges to delay the introduction of minimum unit pricing in Scotland by 6 years. Yet industry groups continue to be seen as a partner, rather than a threat.
In 2018, in a widely criticised move, Public Health England collaborated with the alcohol industry-funded Drinkaware organisation on a public information campaign.
With governments in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland supporting minimum unit pricing, England risks being left behind. It is the Scottish Government that is pressing Westminster politicians to restrict alcohol advertising and to ensure that the drinking guidelines are on every bottle
Where to go now? The obvious channels for progress are the UK Government’s forthcoming alcohol strategy and its green paper on prevention. However, all the signs are that the direction of government policy is unlikely to change, despite pressure from expert clinicians and public health specialists through organisations such as the Alcohol Heath Alliance and the Lancet Standing Commission on Liver Disease in the UK.
To make real progress, we need to help our politicians see that there is an opportunity rather than a threat. The UK has been an international leader in bringing down smoking rates and has been at the forefront of important symbolic policies like plain tobacco packaging. This progress was not achieved overnight, and it took about 40 years for expert medical advice to ban smoking in public places to be implemented. The breakthrough came when the UK Government acknowledged that tobacco regulation could not be left to voluntary agreements and the free market. Heath gains can be achieved only by governments regulating the alcohol market through evidence-based policies.
Politicians should be reassured that the electorate understands the need for regulation. There is strong support among the British public for minimum unit pricing and for mandatory health warnings, unit content, and nutritional information on alcohol labels. The UK Government’s alcohol policies are not fit for purpose. The Panorama programme exposed the perversity and failures of a system that trusts the alcohol industry to keep its own house in order. As politicians scramble for position in the UK, let’s hope they were watching and absorbed the message.
From my own personal view point, I have spoken with own local MP about this twice, and have pointed out the high mortality rate within her constituency of liver disease from alcohol. 26.1% of people over the age of 16 are at risk of liver disease. She refuses to be drawn into this and says that there is a conflict of interest as It would appear she receives funds from CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale).
Make's you think doesn't it???
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