Should the United States follow the surgeon general’s call on Friday for cancer warning labels on alcohol, it would join a tiny contingent of nations that advise drinkers of the risk.
The World Health Organization concluded in 1988 that alcohol is carcinogenic to humans, and it has for years said that the harms of alcohol were well documented. “No safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers can be established,” the W.H.O. reported in 2023.
But a group of researchers noted in a study published in 2020 that only a quarter of the world’s countries require any health warnings on alcohol. Their language is generally vague, and cancer warnings are rare.
The report from the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, included an overview of studies and reviews published over the last 20 years, including a global study of 195 countries and territories involving 28 million people. The research found that greater alcohol consumption was associated with higher risks of cancer.
Here are a few countries that have linked cancer to alcohol or are considering more aggressive labels.
South Korea
Only South Korea has a label warning about liver cancer. In 2016, the country mandated a group of labels for alcohol, some of which include warnings about liver cancer.
Manufacturers can choose, however, to apply alternative labels that don’t mention cancer on their products.
South Korea has long ranked high among countries for alcohol consumption, according to the W.H.O. The authorities in the country have sometimes tried to take action against the national drinking culture. In 2012, for instance, the police in Seoul announced a crackdown on drunken violence.
Ireland
Beginning in 2026, labels that read “THERE IS A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN ALCOHOL AND FATAL CANCERS” and “DRINKING ALCOHOL CAUSES LIVER DISEASE” in red capital letters will be required on all containers of beer, wine and liquor sold in Ireland.
The rule was signed into law in 2023 and would make Ireland the first nation to mandate the public linking of any level of drinking to cancer, according to the World Cancer Research Fund.
Ireland has for years sought different aggressive measures to curb the use of alcohol. In 2022, the country imposed a minimum price on alcohol, a move that the nation’s public health minister, Stephen Donnelly, called “designed to reduce serious illness and death from alcohol consumption and to reduce the pressure on our health services from alcohol-related conditions.”
Ireland has been on the forefront of other public health policies in the past. In 2004, it became the first country to ban smoking in indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants. Since the law’s implementation, more than 70 countries have followed suit.
Other countries’ efforts
Norway already greatly regulates alcohol, restricting beer sales to before 8 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. on Saturdays, and selling wine, spirits and “strong beer” only in state alcohol shops. But in recent years the country has been developing proposals to include cancer warnings, according to local news media.
Thailand is also working on regulation that would require alcohol to have labels with graphic images and text warnings such as “alcoholic beverages can cause cancer,” according to The Bangkok Post. Industry groups have criticized the proposal.
Although Canada does not mandate cancer warnings on alcohol, a bill that would require labels that note a direct link was introduced in the Canadian Parliament in 2022. A group of researchers in Canada sought to study the effect of warning labels mentioning cancer in 2017, but the complaints by alcohol trade groups led a local government to pause the study.
In recent years, the authorities in Canada, Britain and several other countries have endorsed the idea that there’s no safe level of drinking. Some governments of countries with high rates of drinking have also moved to reduce consumption, including in Russia, where the effort has been one of its main public health goals.
Roni Caryn Rabin and Ted Alcorn contributed reporting.
