If they doesn’t matter why do you care if they change them?
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I’ll likely get a timeout, but why do you think the democrats got their asses kicked by a bunch of grifters? Because there are big issues that need to be addressed and our government focuses on bullshit warning labels.
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I generally agree with this; the FDA and USDA definitely have a lot of industry influence. That all being said, on this particular issue, the US is a bit out of step with other similar countries.
There are a ton of foods that are banned in the EU that are regularly sold here, and as said earlier, the EU has adjusted their labels accordingly regarding cancer risk. I think the regulatory environment in the EU is far more science based than here.
Btw, the approval process in the EU for a lot of products and technologies is far better than here, including for medical devices, medications, and artificial intelligence technologies, allowing products to come to market more quickly and be used to benefit patients etc.
I doubt that statement will cause a problem.
There are certainly some folks who don’t want to be told what they should and should not do, and that likely plays into voting patterns. Those are the same folks who still think Covid was a hoax, and vaccines are dangerous.
If the NIH, FDA, and CDC stop doing their jobs - or worse, are not allowed to do their jobs - we are all in trouble.
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Because everything mandated by a government costs money. If nobody pays any attention to them, why require more labels? If people are too fucking stupid not to know that alcohol is bad for them, do you think a warning label will make them smarter?
I think you and the govt underestimate the ability of people to make their own decisions. We all know that booze is bad for many reasons, yet everyone who posts and reads here drinks and have their entire adult lives.
I don’t think it’s common knowledge, at least per this report and a lot of studies that have been conducted that alcohol is carcinogenic in this country.
Do you think it’s good for your doctor to tell you that it’s “healthy” if you drink less than 2 drinks a day for men and 1 drink a day for women if those amounts significantly increase your risk of cancer?
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Yes, I get it. Ketchup is a vegetable. Lobbying groups will always have influence.
I’ve spent substantial time inside FDA and NIH, and a lot more time in labs around the country and world funded by government agencies. The vast majority of work being done in these institutions is for good. Do I think a lot of money gets wasted? Yes. There’s inertia and “lobbying” across science as well. But I have a lot of default faith and trust in the scientific community in this country.
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Well, it is common knowledge that alcohol is bad for society, bad for families, bad for health, bad for finances, bad for productivity, bad for traffic and other injuries, bad for pregnant women (and women who might become pregnant), and on and on. So, every time another bad aspect is discovered about alcohol, every container must have an additional warning? Pretty soon, a can of beer will look like it has a CVS receipt attached.
It’s similar to the disclaimers and warnings in pharma adds. There are so many contraindications cited that they become nothing more than noise. Btw, Robert Kennedy is right about re-banning pharma ads.
Alcoholism, sure. Do you think it’s common knowledge that moderate alcohol use has negative health outcomes. I don’t.
In medical school we’re taught to counsel patients about the limits I just mentioned in my above post…
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That’s the job of a doctor. That is not the job of a liquor store.
FYI changing labels on cigarettes has been found to have saved ~8m lives in the last 60 years. Do you think we should never have done that?
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I think many things have worked to reduce smoking deaths over the past 50 years and that it is not possible to credit that to warning labels.
Sure, it’s multifactorial, but the surgeon general announcing the carcinogenicity of smoking in 1964 started the overall trend. I’m not arguing that moderate alcohol use is as bad as smoking for health (it’s not). That all being said, I think the negative health effects are not common knowledge.
I think people are severely overestimating how much of medical education in the US focuses on lifestyle modification.
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Let’s just say the Surgeon General should be more concerned with the OBESITY of US citizens.
Oh they are, but it isn’t like they are only concerned about one element of people’s health at a time.
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It’s a lot worse than that, Alan. It’s blatant and open ignoring of the science in order to keep from questioning its historical advice, even in face of the obvious fact that the historical advice has failed miserably. I have a lot of respect for you and your knowledge, but I think it’s possible that, in this case, you might not get it.
As I said, I am happy to discuss this topic elsewhere. Yeah, I keep answering…so I’ll stop, and we can continue elsewhere if you like.
Well fuck that, OBESITY is the main problem for health and links to many other issues in health, like CANCER
It’s certainly a large concern but there are a lot of health issues to deal with. I think in terms of deaths obesity and eating ultra processed foods is definitely a major concern, but smoking, opioid abuse, and alcohol are also issues.
Interesting. Every doctor I’ve seen during my life from childhood onward, focuses on lifestyle choices. Much more important and effective than ineffective warning labels and other govt regulations (like banning the sale of large fountain drinks).
That’s facile. The issue is overregulation. Overregulation is the enemy of ‘good’ science and ‘good’ medicine. If the govt interfered less in people’s daily lives and was more trustworthy, the anti-vax lunatic fringe would be much smaller and get much less traction. While our government tries to regulate everything, it is contraproductive because people don’t pay attention when govt does have something important to say. Saying booze is bad is akin to saying a shovel is for digging. Meaningless labels that nobody reads are not the answer.
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Yeah, we had probably a 3 week course on it. There’s very little emphasis on prevention in this country. Probably internal medicine or family medicine residency has some additional training, but i wouldn’t know anything about that.