Scary piccies on the booze bottles

As the perceptive have noted the Puritans were not defeated in 1660:

Hard-hitting TV campaigns about the dangers of unhealthy eating and labels on alcohol are needed to curb the huge rise in avoidable cancers, charities and health campaigners have warned.

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) said mass media campaigns, using tough messages mirroring the graphic photographs and wording on cigarette packets, were now needed to tackle the widespread lack of awareness that alcohol and being overweight are both major causes of cancer.

Weekly booze limits these days are what a journalist calls breakfast so we do think that perhaps people are going a little far. But japes and jollity aside, a serious point:

Ireland recently became the first country in the world to legislate to do that. In future, labels on alcohol products will warn drinkers that “drinking alcohol causes liver disease” and “there is a direct link between alcohol and fatal cancers”.

We all know what happens next. Ireland has done it therefore we must too. As when Scotland brought in minimum pricing (which we’ve never understood, why boost profit margins with minimum prices, why not raise tax instead?) then and therefore England must too.

Leave aside the specific policies here. Think about science for a moment. Hypothesis, experiment, evidence, confirmation or rejection of hypothesis. According to the evidence we’ve seen minimum pricing seems to kill people. So, let’s not follow Scotland in doing that. But we only know that because Scotland did the experiment and we all waited to see whether the evidence from it confirmed or rejected the original hypothesis.

Scary piccies on the booze bottles. Will it work? No, leave aside assumptions and all that. Ireland is starting the experiment. Excellent, let’s await the results shall we?

After all, if we’re going to pretend to use science in public health matters then let’s actually use science in public health matters, shall we? Idea, experiment, results - that’s how science works.

Of course, we can run with the alternative, which is to refuse to use science when discussing matters public health. But at that point there’s not much point in doing any public health, is there?