Alcohol distributors and producers were backing down on Wall Street Friday after the U.S. Surgeon General called for health warnings to be put in place on alcoholic beverages to warn the public of carcinogenic risks.
• Also read: Reduce your alcohol consumption to avoid cancer
Around 6:50 p.m. GMT, the beer giant, Anheuser-Busch, which notably owns the Stella Artois, Bud Light and Hoegaarden brands, dropped 2.09%.
Constellation Brands, the parent company of Corona beers and other brewers, fell 0.35%, while American-Canadian brewer Molson Coors lost 3.95%.
Boston Beer, which produces Sam Adams beer, slipped 2.53% and the parent company of Jack Daniels whiskey, Brown-Forman, fell 1.32%.
The sector retreated after statements by Chief Medical Officer Vivek Murthy, who on Friday called for new means of awareness to be put in place to prevent the risk of cancer linked to alcohol consumption.
Vivek Murthy notably advocated the implementation of warnings affixed to alcoholic beverages in the United States which would inform about the risks of cancer, as in South Korea and Ireland.
Warnings are already present today on alcoholic products in the United States, particularly warning pregnant women and drivers.
Alcohol consumption is “responsible for approximately 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths each year in the United States – more than the 13,500 alcohol-related traffic deaths” in this country. , Mr. Murthy said.
“And yet the majority of Americans are not aware of this risk,” he continues, emphasizing the importance of an information campaign in this sense.
The direct link between alcohol consumption and cancer was first established in the late 1980s and has since been documented by several studies, the report recalls.
Links have thus been highlighted with at least seven types of cancer: cancers of the breast, colon-rectum, esophagus, liver, oral cavity, pharynx and larynx, the document continues. All types of alcoholic beverages are affected: beer, wines and spirits.
