Although many French people are experiencing “Dry January” this year, there is no real awareness campaign to denounce the health risks of alcohol. The associations denounce pressure from the alcohol lobby, a substance which causes 50,000 deaths each year in France.
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“No more than two glasses of alcohol per day and not every day.” This is the message from the health authorities seen and heard on posters, on television and on the radio to inform the French about the recommended dose to avoid illnesses and accidents. Despite these messages of moderation, there is no shock campaign in France, such as for road safety or tobacco, to denounce the effects of alcohol, a substance responsible for some 50,000 deaths each year in France. . But nevertheless, most French people respect these recommendations according to figures from Public Health France.
This is the case of Joelle, a fifty-year-old Parisian. “I drink very little in terms of quantity, one glass of wine a day. Not drinking is rather the exception. Five days a week one or two glasses of wine. For a very long time, and until very recently, I I believed that by remaining within these limits recommended by the health authorities, I would not run any danger”she explains to franceinfo.
Dangerous alcohol, from the first drink
Contrary to popular belief, drinking little is not without danger: just one glass of wine per day increases the risk of developing breast cancer by 10%, for example. As for the antioxidant effects of red wine, be careful, you would have to drink hectoliters of it to benefit from them. This is obviously to be avoided.
What is little known is that alcohol causes fewer road accidents or cirrhosis liver than cancers: 28,000 per year. Indeed, alcohol, or ethanol, is a carcinogenic substance, present in all alcoholic drinks: wine, beer, whiskey, vodka, gin. In a video from the National Cancer Institute, oncologist Jean-Baptiste Méric explains how ethanol acts on our body. “Once ingested, alcohol will be transformed into acetaldehyde, a very reactive chemical molecule which will come into contact with the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, and will locally exert a DNA modification action and promote the development of cancer cells., deciphers the oncologist. What can trigger breast cancer is the action of alcohol on our hormones.
While doctors agree that alcohol is harmful, we do not see a “drinking kills” message on bottle labels, as on cigarette packets. The government is much less strict on alcohol than on tobacco. This is obvious when we listen again to Aurélien Rousseau, former Minister of Health, interviewed on December 15 on franceinfo: “Reasonable alcohol consumption does not produce long-term risks, whereas with cigarettes, from the first cigarette, there are risks”he explained.
A Minister of Health who affirms that we do not take risks by drinking sensibly: the type of declaration which scandalizes the president of Addiction France, Doctor Bernard Basset for whom “the pressure from the alcohol lobby is major”. “In terms of the campaign, he is not doing enough, that is very clear, that is nothing new. Alcohol is the second cause of preventable death after tobacco, so it is necessarily a public health priority for any minister and we see that in reality, it is not.concludes Bernard Basset. The government does not want to encourage the French not to drink alcohol, it simply wants to reduce the risks.
Are the big French alcohol companies behind the reluctance of our leaders? If there is indeed an alcohol lobby – which highlights the 500,000 jobs generated by the wine sector – there are also the taxes which enter the state coffers. Except that alcohol actually costs much more than it brings in according to health economist Frédéric Bizard.
“We must tell the President of the Republic that raising a glass in front of millions of people costs society a lot of money”
Frédéric Bizard, health economistat franceinfo
“When we add the costs linked to the years of life lost, the expenses linked to the loss of productivity, the expenses for public finances, in particular the costs of care, plus taxes, we are at around a hundred billion, or 4 points of cost GDP”according to Frédéric Bizard.
He denounces, for example, the gesture of the President who drank a beer “as dry as possible” at the Toulousain stadium last June. Obviously, this doesn’t help send a message of moderation. However, it should be: more than 20% of French people still exceed the recommended consumption limits, the famous two drinks per day maximum.