Home > [Joint press statement] Eurocare and EPHA response to misleading industry media campaign ahead of the 13th plenary meeting of the European Alcohol and Health Forum.

[European Public Health Alliance] [Joint press statement] Eurocare and EPHA response to misleading industry media campaign ahead of the 13th plenary meeting of the European Alcohol and Health Forum. (20 Nov 2013)

External website: http://www.epha.org/a/5871

Following the news that a number of Eurocare members and EPHA partners representing young people have withdrawn from the European Alcohol and Health Forum (EAHF) (1), a number of inaccurate claims have been made by the alcohol industry to undermine an ambitious future EU Action Plan on alcohol-related harm and NGO commitments to achieve this.

In several media articles, alcohol industry representatives (2) have attempted to misrepresent the reasons why these civil society organisations resigned from the EAHF. EPHA and Eurocare would like to address this and reiterate our concerns about the reliance by the European Commission on self-regulation (3) and the role of economic operators (4).

The primary obligation of the drinks industry is to increase shareholder value by increasing sales of alcohol, whereas the primary obligation of the health community is to prevent alcohol related harm by advocating for proven policies with a strong evidence base (5). The drinks industry has significantly greater financial power for activities targeting the media and lobbying budget and uses this power to oppose any evidence based policy which is likely to reduce their profits, the majority of which come from sales to hazardous and harmful drinkers. As such the two sets of organisations have inherently opposed objectives.

 

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