Surgeon General’s Call For Alcohol Warning Label Likely To Fall Flat In Congress

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s call Friday to require alcohol labels warning of cancer risk will likely face strong resistance in Congress, which would have to pass a law to require the labels.

The alcohol industry fiercely opposes labeling as well as stricter guidance around consumption — the government currently recommends men consume no more than two drinks per day and women no more than one — and has cultivated support among lawmakers through an expensive lobbying and political operation.

Americans’ spending on alcohol has dropped since reaching a peak of nearly $9 billion a month during the Covid pandemic and the industry is eager to stop the decline.

In his report Friday, Murthy said there was a direct link between alcohol and cancer risk and that drinking is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S., after tobacco and obesity. His call for labels comes as the departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture are preparing new dietary guidelines and two years after the World Health Organization said any drinking is unsafe.

“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States,” Murthy said in a statement. “The majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.”

Incoming President Donald Trump and his pick to lead HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., could change the guidance without congressional assent.

HHS is studying alcohol’s dangers in the lead up to the dietary guideline update and public health advocates in favor of labels and stricter guidance hope Trump and Kennedy will embrace the cause. Neither Trump, whose brother died of alcohol use disorder, nor Kennedy, who attends daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, drink.

Trump and Kennedy have not weighed in on labels or the new dietary guidelines. Kennedy has said he believes Americans’ diet is a prime reason the U.S. has the lowest lifespan of among large, wealthy countries.

Neither Kennedy nor the Trump transition team responded to requests for comment.

If they were to move for stricter guidance or labels, they’ll likely face opposition in Congress.

A group of more than 100 representatives led by Mike Thompson, a Democrat who represents California’s wine country, and Dan Newhouse, a Republican who grows grapes on his Yakima Valley, Washington, farm, wrote to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in October asking them to suspend a study on alcohol consumption overseen by HHS that figures to undergird the new dietary guidelines. Thompson and Newhouse lead the Congressional Wine Caucus.

Federal disclosures show that the alcohol industry has a robust lobbying operation aimed at persuading members of Congress, HHS and the USDA. In 2024, some of the top lobbying spenders — brewer Anheuser-Busch, and two industry groups, the Distilled Spirits Council, and the Beer Institute — spent a combined $8,810,000 on lobbying, according to Open Secrets, a group that tracks money in politics.

According to lobbying disclosures filed for the first three quarters of 2024, all of them listed issues related to the dietary guidelines. The alcohol industry also contributed nearly $24 million to political candidates and parties during the 2024 cycle, including more than $300,000 to Trump and $70,000 to Kennedy, who dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump in August. Trump’s son, Eric, owns the largest winery in Virginia, outside Charlottesville.

Thompson and House Speaker Mike Johnson were also top recipients of alcohol industry contributions in the 2024 cycle.

Besides the Wine Caucus, lawmakers in 2023 formed the 21st Amendment Caucus, chaired by Reps. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) and Susie Lee (D-Nev.) with the backing of the alcohol industry, to encourage state-based regulation of alcohol. The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition in 1933.

Murthy’s advisory comes as a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that even moderate drinking is linked to health problems, challenging previous research finding that moderate alcohol consumption could improve heart health.

The shift in thinking could be driving a change in Americans’ drinking habits. Young adults are imbibing at lower rates than previous generations with the percentage of adults aged 18 to 34 who report they consume alcohol declining from 72 percent to 62 percent over the past two decades, per a 2023 Gallup poll. The Pew Research Center has tracked a decline in alcohol spending since December 2020.

The surgeon general’s calls also come ahead of a looming federal study on alcohol and health that will inform the new dietary guidelines. That study has led some on Capitol Hill and in the beverage industry to fear the coming guidance could recommend further limiting alcohol consumption.

In recent years, two concurrent panels of experts convened to review the latest research on alcohol and its health effects.

One of those panels, led by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, put out its findings in a congressionally mandated report last month.

It found that moderate drinking is associated with lower risk of mortality and risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Still, it also said moderate drinking, when compared to non-drinking, is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer.

The second panel, convened by HHS, is expected to put out its draft results sometime in the next month, an HHS spokesperson told POLITICO.

The HHS study prompted the letter from Thompson, Newhouse and their colleagues. They asked Becerra and Vilsack why a second study was commissioned beyond the National Academies’ report.

In November, Republican leaders on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee asked HHS officials for an explanation. A spokesperson for the committee’s chair, James Comer (R-Ky.), told POLITICO HHS refused an interview, but the department said it would make documents related to the study available. Kentucky is known for its bourbon whiskey and Maker’s Mark Distillery is in Comer’s district.

The alcohol industry has called the HHS study biased, pointing out that the scientific review panel has researchers who were part of a team that proposed stricter guidelines for Canada.

Meanwhile, the findings of the National Academies’ report could bolster the industry’s arguments that alcohol use shouldn’t be further discouraged.

In a joint statement last month, industry groups for beer, wine and spirits companies said they wanted to be sure USDA and HHS set new dietary guidelines based on “a preponderance of sound science” to “promote informed and responsible decision-making around alcohol.”