Unfortunately, Australia’s newspaper readers might despair at getting an accurate view of the alcohol guidelines to be distributed by the National Health & Medical Research Council.
In The Australian, culture war warrior Janet Albrechtsen admitted she had not seen the report but went ahead and ridiculed it anyway. “The nanny state has apparently spoken. I went to bed last night feeling happy after a night out with friends. I wake up in the morning to news that I am a binge drinker because I indulged in more than three glasses of wine.”
Her misreporting seems to have (mis)led journos all over the country to whoop it up at the expense of those crazy boffins at the NHMRC who just want to spoil people’s fun. Only problem is she got it well wrong, and so did they all, of course. Following the leader, Crikey’s Bernard Keane (Bingeing on a ute full of alcopops, yesterday), made two mistakes:
- The NHMRC has not said that 4 standard drinks constitutes a binge.
- The NHMRC does not say more than two standard drinks constitutes risky drinking.
The guidelines constitute simple and transparent advice for drinkers.
The draft published last October stated that adults who drink no more than two standard drinks per day (cumulatively 14 standard drinks per week) have a low chance of incurring an alcohol related harm (i.e. an injury, accident, disease). “Low risk” means one chance in 100 of such an outcome when compared to a non-drinker, who has zero risk.
Consequently, if an adult drinks more than two drinks on any occasion, their risk of an injury or accident is better than one in 100, and the odds worsen as they consume more. If they do so over many years, the odds of an alcohol-related disease increases too. What is hard to understand? Readers of Crikey can cope, maybe also readers of The Australian and The Age.
Despite Albrechtsen et al, the NHMRC draft did not employ the term binge drinking because medical scientists do not agree on how many drinks constitute a “binge”, or the period of time in which they must be consumed to qualify as a binge. Nevertheless, it would be a pity if the term is lost, as it is an expression that resonates with the public. Most people understand “binge drinking” to mean an episodic bout of excessive and unsafe drinking, usually ending in extreme levels of intoxication. British researcher Fiona Measham uses the expression “determined drunkenness” as a synonym for a binge.
Other countries suggest a daily limit of close to two Australian standard drinks (20 grams of pure alcohol) or a weekly max of 14 units/standard drinks (140 grams). They include Japan (14 units or 140 grams), Finland (15 units or 150 grams), Canada (14 units or 190 grams) and Austria (168 grams per week). Suddenly the NHMRC doesn’t seem outlandish. No-one imagines that everyone will always restrict themselves to this level but it indicates what medical scientists think is relatively safe. What is the alternative: should they tell us what we want to hear, or the truth as they understand it?
Janet Albrechtsen did journalism no credit in retailing her own invention.
Those who followed her did no better. There is no doubt that the alcohol industry wants to discredit the NHMRC guidelines. Is that what it was all about?
Geoff misses the mark in several ways here.
It is stretching to blame Janet Albrechtsen for not reading a report that has not been released.
The final recommendations by the Working Group, of which Professor Currie is the Chair, has not been released, and according to the Minister for Health in The Australian yesterday, are still being peer reviewed.
If the Minister is correct, why were the recommendations pre-announced in the Sunday Age and Sunday Herald? This is a question that the NHMRC should be asking.
Professor Currie himself used the words ‘binge drinking’ in the Herald Sun on Sunday – “So our definition of binge drinking will drop as well” Perhaps journalists can be excused for using the term as well.
Geoff also overlooks the fact that the ‘4 standard drinks’ as the upper limit is new – this was not in the draft guidelines announced in October. Again, a direct qoute from Professor Currie in the Herald Sun Sunday -“There is a new section that says on any occasion, if you’re going to set a top limit, you really need to set a limit of four drinks as the moment.”
What the draft guidelines suggested was that two standard drinks a day were the limit for lifetime low risk (1-100). But this is reducing the guidelines to the point of absurdity, like suggesting that to have a low risk of traffic accident, all driving across the entire lifetime should be at 25kph.
Well this article answers the remarks I made in today’s Comments and Corrections; I can live with this quite happily. In fact it is what I understood to be the position until yesterday’s comment by Bernard Keane.
Stephen Riden sounds like those tobacco industry apologists who resisted all initial attempts to reduce the disastrous affects on smoking throughout the world. Smoking should be done ‘responsibly’ & was a ‘lifestyle choice’ , they echoed ad nauseum.
Alcohol’s increasingly devastating effects on Western society are well documented. It’s supply should be closely monitored, and it’s public promotion should be banned forthwith. I like a drink, but not in a society where it’s an ‘anything goes’ attitude when it comes to public consumption of alcohol. Public drunkenness should attract a $750 fine for a first offence, rising in $250 increments for further offences.
In 20 years, the Stephen Riden’s of this world will appear like the tobacco spruikers of the 70’s…way out of touch with changing community values.
Good article and certainly adds a bit of sanity to the debate. I drink about 4-6 beers (probably adds up to close to 8 standard drinks) over about 5 hours most evenings (one or two when I get home, one or two over a meal and one or two in front of the telly). I will be cutting that back as a consequence of what I’ve read recently from the NHMRC. It’s easier to make that decision in response to measured writing such as this than journalists (or worse, columnists) interpretations of the NHMRC reports. Nevertheless, some of the sillier reporting about this issue has highlighted the need to be careful in how scientific findings are reported. Telling Australians that four drinks is a ‘binge’ (rather than suggesting 4 drinks has a health consequence) will be totally counter-productive if you want them to take it seriously (I’m not suggesting the NHMRC did this, but Rudd came close this week).
Albrechtsen and her mates at the Oz just can’t get to grips that people voted Labour. Like Howard did, they will pick up on every trivial issue and twist it to make Rudd look bad. They bang on about the piddling $35 million dollars that Rudd has given to Toyota, but never say a word in criticism about the $40 million the Victorian government has pledged for the HRL/Kerry Stokes clean coal experiment, in the Latrobe Valley. This is also to be subsidised to the tune of $100 million by the Feds thanks to Howards lot. Apprarently it’s OK for governments to pick losers, but to never try and pick winners. Construction of this plant was due to begin around September last year, then it got delayed to May this year and guess what? Not a shovel full of sod has been turned and we hear on the grapevine it will be June next year before anything happens. The way things are going they will be lucky to get it running before the next ice age. What people don’t know is that this plant is destined to run on natural gas as well as syngas gas made from coal. If the coal gasification doesn’t work guess what the Governments will have subsidised. A combined cycle natural gas fired power station. Certainly one way of avoiding carbon emissions from coal. Not a bleet from Albrechtsen about this. She isn’t biased at all is she?