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Experts warn of alcohol problem
Source: Agencies |
February 22, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FAILURE to tackle Britain's persistent alcohol problem could lead to hundreds of thousands more people dying from liver disease in the UK than in many other European countries, health experts said yesterday.
Accusing British ministers of pandering to alcohol producers, leading doctors said France had seen "phenomenal success" in cutting death rates, partly by curbing availability of cheap alcohol, while in the UK, the alcohol industry and retailers "are reliant on people risking their health to provide profits."
In a worst-case scenario, up to 250,000 extra lives could be lost in England and Wales alone due to alcohol in the next 20 years unless tougher restrictions are introduced, they wrote in a report in The Lancet medical journal.
"How many more people have to die from alcohol-related conditions, and how many more families devastated by the consequences before the government takes the situation as seriously as it took the dangers of tobacco," said Ian Gilmore, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians, who co-wrote the report with Nick Sheron of Southampton University and Chris Hawkey of Nottingham University.
"We already know from the international evidence that the main ways to reduce alcohol consumption are to increase the price and reduce the availability of alcohol, yet the government continues... to ignore this evidence."
The liver death rate in Britain has more than doubled from around 4.9 per 100,000 people in the mid 1980s to 11.4 per 100,000 currently.
Accusing British ministers of pandering to alcohol producers, leading doctors said France had seen "phenomenal success" in cutting death rates, partly by curbing availability of cheap alcohol, while in the UK, the alcohol industry and retailers "are reliant on people risking their health to provide profits."
In a worst-case scenario, up to 250,000 extra lives could be lost in England and Wales alone due to alcohol in the next 20 years unless tougher restrictions are introduced, they wrote in a report in The Lancet medical journal.
"How many more people have to die from alcohol-related conditions, and how many more families devastated by the consequences before the government takes the situation as seriously as it took the dangers of tobacco," said Ian Gilmore, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians, who co-wrote the report with Nick Sheron of Southampton University and Chris Hawkey of Nottingham University.
"We already know from the international evidence that the main ways to reduce alcohol consumption are to increase the price and reduce the availability of alcohol, yet the government continues... to ignore this evidence."
The liver death rate in Britain has more than doubled from around 4.9 per 100,000 people in the mid 1980s to 11.4 per 100,000 currently.
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