This year’s Cancer Prevention Action Week (23rd – 29th June 2025) is focused on the link between alcohol and cancer. And for good reason. Because this link has rarely received the attention it deserves. Some causes of cancer are better known than others. Smoking, poor diet and UV radiation would perhaps be top of most people’s list. Most people might associate alcohol harm with liver disease, drink-driving, or addiction. Fewer are aware that alcohol is also classed as a Group 1 carcinogen – in the same category as tobacco – by the World Health Organisation. Alcohol is a risk factor in at least seven different types of cancer, including some of the most common cancers: breast, bowel and oesophageal. And in total, alcohol consumption is responsible for 11,900 cases of cancer a year in the UK, nearly one in 25 cases.
Yet awareness of this risk remains strikingly low. Why is that? It may have something to do with the complications of the relationship British society has with alcohol, and the scope and influence that gives to the alcohol industry.
Many of us have seen some of the harms associated with alcohol. Yet at the same time many of us will also associate alcohol with socialising, relaxation and celebrating. And for those reasons, it may be difficult, even jarring, to bring cancer into the conversation, and into our thinking about alcohol.
But understanding and managing risk is a part of life. It’s something we all have to do every day. If alcohol comes with cancer risk, that’s just something else we need to face. We can’t keep bottling it.
However, we also have an information gap that we need to tackle. Most people have just not been exposed to the facts on alcohol and cancer.
So this Cancer Prevention Action Week, CancerWatch has written to the Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, to call for the government to take action and introduce mandatory health warnings on the labels of alcohol products.
The case for doing so is strong. Consumers deserve the ability to make informed choices. There is good evidence that having this information helps people to moderate consumption. But consumers are currently denied that information. Because, unlike foodstuffs, which have mandatory requirements for nutritional information on labels, there is little or no health information available on alcohol labels. And standards for alcohol labelling are maintained by a voluntary industry-led code.
There is a better standard that we could aspire to. The Irish Government has legislated to introduce mandatory health information, including cancer risk, on all alcohol products from May 2026.
The UK government has placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of prevention in its thinking about the soon-to-arrive 10 Year Health Plan and the National Cancer Plan. This is welcome, but an effective approach to cancer prevention will require us to recognise and address the cancer risks associated with alcohol. That starts with raising awareness of that link. We can do this by following the lead set by the Irish government. The government should stop bottling it and act now.
The CancerWatch Team – June 2025