The Times

By David Rose

27 October 2006 

The rebuff to Patricia Hewitt came as health experts said that a European strategy to tackle alcohol abuse was under attack from the drinks industry.

A report published today in the British Medical Journal says that the industry is trying to derail a plan for dealing with excessive drinking by using similar tactics to those used by the tobacco industry to undermine evidence on the harmful effects of passive smoking.

Martin McKee, a public health expert writing in the BMJ, called on EU Commissioners to resist pressure to abandon the alcohol harm reduction strategy being proposed to tackle a problem that costs the European economy billions of pounds each year.

Professor McKee, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that the strategy now being debated, although not yet in the public domain, was expected to have five main themes.

These were protection of young people and unborn children; reduction of deaths from alcohol-related traffic accidents; reduction of alcohol-related harm among adults, especially as it affects their work; increasing awareness of the impact of harmful consumption; and the creation of a better evidence base for future policies on alcohol in Europe.

Professor McKee said some would argue that the strategy should go much further, yet even these “modest proposals” might now fail, after disingenuous information from the alcohol industry such as a recent report commissioned by a trade organisation, The Brewers of Europe, which argues there is no need for Europe-wide action.

Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, backed the call for commissioners to resist pressure to abandon an alcohol harm reduction strategy.

He made public a letter he wrote this month urging Markos Kyprianou, the Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, to withstand the alcohol lobby.