In most cases, professionally and personally, the utterances of organisations and individuals are thoroughly investigated for veracity and accuracy – in essence, you are held to account for what you say. We regularly see this in politics with fact checking and probing by the media and political opponents, in sport with detailed analysis of performances and results, and in business with financial analysis of accounts, amongst others. However, when it comes to the alcohol industry, it appears they can say whatever they want without their statements ever being investigated for fact or accuracy.

While this has long been the case, in recent years it appears that the alcohol industry has developed an even greater propensity for tall tales – unfortunately, these claims are increasingly being swallowed by media and politicians. From claiming youth drinking is decreasing, to alcohol health information labelling affecting exports, to questioning the proven link between alcohol and cancer, and everything in between, the industry will say anything to obfuscate the harm their product causes – irrespective of the truth.

Big Alcohol having a disregard for truth is unsurprising, however, what is frustrating is failure of the media and politicians to interrogate industry claims, and worse again is their role in amplifying these false claims.

In this blog AAI investigate some the alcohol industry’s most recent doublespeak.

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