A doctor who told you to smoke cigarettes "in moderation" would likely lose their license, but alcohol has long been known as a legitimate class 1 carcinogen, deemed such before the International Agency for Research on Cancer was hijacked by activist epidemiologists as likely as not to be caught signing contracts with predatort trial lawyers, and has gotten 'in moderation' hand-waving by the medical community.

Maybe it is due to the amount of money the American Medical Association gets from the alcohol industry, maybe it is because there are 6X as many alcohol drinkers as there are smokers, but one thing certain is 'in moderation' free passes have nothing to do with science.

Every time you expose yourself to a carcinogen - a real one, like cigarettes or alcohol, not manufactured nonsense like spraying weedkillers on your lawn - you roll the dice. 


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A recent systematic review of 62 studies with over 100 million participants found alcohol increases cases of breast, liver, esophageal, and gastric cancers, tied to consumption. Obviously continuing to ingest alcohol worsens outcomes in things like liver cancer. Like all cancers there is also a genetic disposition and the authors dutifully include concerns about the black community, as if any group dying from an optional lifestyle choice is more okay than another, but they muddy the epidemiological waters trying to suggest there is a social justice issue.(1)

Beer and white wine were linked to higher risks, probably because people drink so much more of it, increasing their relative risk even if the percentage of alcohol is lower. Men who drink a lot are at higher risk, as are women who binge-drink the most. Other things, like eye color, are funny but so weird they shouldn't be included because they undermine the results.

No one is saying alcohol should be banned. Governments, especially in Europe, spend way too much time banning everything, but an informed population will reduce the alcohol market to where cigarette smokers are; tolerated in the name of diversity and acceptance but not cool.

Citation: Isabella Abraham, Gabriella Dasilva, Kayla Ernst, Alexandra Campson, Alana Starr, Christine Kamm, George Kosseifi, Morgan Decker, Sahar Kaleem, Nada Eldawy, Paige Brinzo, Tiffany Follin, Christine Ramdin, Maria Mejia, Lewis S. Nelson, Lea Sacca, A systematic review on the risk of developing cancer and frequency of alcohol consumption behaviors in US adults,
Cancer Epidemiology, Volume 99, 2025, 102956, ISSN 1877-7821, 10.1016/j.canep.2025.102956.

NOTE:

(1) You can't have greater risk of a cancer with lower exposure because you make less money. That is simply the kind of academic pandering that both universities and journals demand from papers, it makes no sense and is a key reason why so few rightly trust epidemiology the way they did 30 years ago. Demographics who drink and smoke may also exercise less and visit the doctor less, despite health care being free. You can't control health outcomes without limiting all behavior.