“We know that nine in 10 people aren’t aware of the link between alcohol and cancer,” Jana Witt, Cancer Research UK’s health information officer, told The Guardian. And the few that are aware of the link may be skeptical of it based on misleading health stories and competing reports on the potential benefits of drinking.
This confusion, ignorance, and skepticism frustrated Jennie Connor, a preventive and social medicine expert at Otago University in New Zealand. So, she tried to clear up the public health facts with an opinion piece published Thursday in the journal Addiction, under the section “For Debate.” Her piece offered the declarative perspective that alcohol causes cancer.