Prof Mark Petticrew and Prof Martin McKee from the Faculty of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Dame Theresa Marteau from the University of Cambridge Behaviour and Health Research Unit – said the website appeared to have confused daily and weekly drinking guidelines.
They accused Drinkaware of “disseminating messages that could mislead the public about the risk of cancer from alcohol consumption, using strategies similar to the tobacco and other industries”.
“Drinkaware’s approach … typically focuses on pathological drinking patterns while avoiding or misrepresenting evidence on measures known to work, including pricing, marketing, and availability controls,” they wrote.
“Drinkaware’s alcohol self-assessment tool on their website seems to endorse heavy drinking. For example, a 30-year-old man who drinks seven units a day, every day – over three times the current guidelines for low-risk drinking – receives the advice: ‘If you continue drinking at this level and do not exceed the daily guidelines then you are drinking in a way that is unlikely to harm your health. Drinking consistently within these limits is called lower risk rather than safe because drinking alcohol is never completely safe’.”
In response, PHE said such examples “show the Drinkaware website needs a full audit, which we are discussing with Drinkaware”.
But writing in the Lancet medical journal, John Newton, PHE’s director of health improvement, and Paul Cosford, the medical director, continued to defend the tie-up with Drinkaware.
“As a national public health agency, our primary consideration is our duty to protect and improve health. We consider that duty is best served in this case by working with Drinkaware on their campaign,” they wrote.
Newton and Cosford claimed the tie-up had allowed PHE to “improve and inform the work of another body already active in alcohol education”.
Petticrew, McKee, and Marteau, meanwhile, urged PHE to develop a code of practice on its relationship with industry in order to maintain credibility.
Newton and Cosford defended the agency’s other links with industry.
“Our successful experience of working closely with the food industry in England on reformulation to reduce salt, sugar, and calories in the national diet has been based on a clear.
