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for the BATF to hold hearings on whether the "health effects" label can legally be
affixed to every wine bottle. They're scheduled to take place in a number of U.S.
cities in late spring.
Today the Wine Institute touts its product on its website with studies and press
releases. One quotes David Pittman, Ph.D., researcher at Washington University in
St. Louis: "In societies such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, where wine and
overall alcohol consumption is higher than in the United States, they just don't have
as many alcohol-related problems such as drunk driving and underage drinking."
That would be news to France.
The world view that the French are able to control their drinking habits is untrue,
according to Pierre Kopp, professor of economics at the Sorbonne. Kopp recently
released the first French study estimating the cost of legal (alcohol and tobacco)
and illegal drugs. Kopp estimates that alcohol costs France $18.5 billion (U.S.)
each year. Drinking is responsible for nearly 53 percent of overall social costs of
alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs, he reports. (Annual cost to the state is $14.3
billion for tobacco and $2 billion for illegal drugs.)
But even these high alcohol economic cost figures are underestimated, cautions the
researcher, because he left out alcohol-related crime and accidents, which comprise
some of the largest costs to society in the United States. Kopp focused on public
and private money spent on medical treatment, lost productivity, absenteeism,
uncollected taxes, unpaid health contributions, and preventive measures.
[...]
"Consumption is exceptionally high and the final bill is extremely heavy. Alcohol
accounted for 42,963 deaths in France in 1997."
[...]
When "60 Minutes" introduced the French Paradox to America, Morley Safer featured
only one French scientific authority - Serge Renaud, a trendsetter in alcohol
research who still maintains that "there is no doubt that a moderate intake of wine
(one to three glasses per day for a man) is associated with a 30- to 40-percent
reduction in mortality from all causes." In its first issue of the new millennium,
the prestigious British journal Lancet noted in a short profile of Renaud that his
enthusiasm for alcohol and the French Paradox is hardly unanimous today among his
French peers. In fact, at least two of the scientists instrumental in early French
Paradox research today disagree with Renaud's belief in the central role of alcohol
in a lower coronary heart disease rate.
[...]
What's new for both men is the MONICA Project established by centers around the world
to MONItor trends in Cardiovascular diseases and relate them to risk factor changes
over a 10-year period. Established in the early 1980s by WHO, its final data were
highlighted last September at the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona. De
Lorgeril reported there that the WHO data were 75 to 90 percent higher than France's
statistics for coronary heart disease deaths.
The cardiologist said he scrutinized alcohol-related deaths and found that French
men, "who drink too much," have the highest rates of liver disease and - by far
more upper gastrointestinal cancer, and were more likely to die in accidents, by
suicide, or as a consequence of crime than men of other nationalities. While men in
Sweden can expect to live 76.5 years on average, a French man's average lifespan,
said de Lorgeril, is 74.1 years.
Dr. Ian Graham, a professor of epidemiology at Trinity College in Dublin, said that
de Lorgeril's statistics suggest that the lower rate of coronary deaths in France are
due "to competing causes of death" - many more French men might die early from
alcohol-related causes before they have the opportunity to die of heart disease.
[...]
In 1998, a pharmacist who is a director at the French counterpart of the U.S.
National Institute of Health handed then French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner a
report that had the effect of "a sort of a bomb." In what has become known as the
Roques Report, Bernard Roques classified drugs on the basis of their danger to the
public rather than their legal status. Based on scientific data, alcohol took first
place along with heroin and cocaine; tobacco took second place with amphetamines and
LSD; and marijuana was in the third, least dangerous group.
[...]
Written by Hilary Abramson; edited by James F. Mosher; copy edited by Pam Glenn
Copyright 2000 Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol Other Drug Problems
The original article from which the above excerpts were taken can be found on the
Marin Institute web site at www.marininstitute.org/NL2000.html.
Drink Like the French,
Die Like the French
by David Jernigan
The truth is finally starting to come out: If Americans drink alcohol like the