New report lifts lid on industry influence

A new report from the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) reveals how alcohol companies and industry-funded lobbying led to the removal of alcohol marketing restrictions from the 10 Year Health Plan.

Alcohol marketing restrictions – recommended by the World Health Organization as one of the most effective measures to reduce alcohol harm — were widely expected to feature in the Plan but IAS’s analysis of Freedom of Information (FOI) documents released today reveals that alcohol companies explicitly asked the Government to drop proposed marketing restrictions.

The report highlights how alcohol industry correspondence relied on misleading claims about evidence, exaggerated economic threats, and repeated assertions that the industry should be consulted on health policy, despite a clear conflict of interest.

Public First polling shows that an overwhelming majority of people (74%) want the Government to prioritise the public’s health over business growth and the NHS was ranked the second most important issue facing the country right now.

Alice Wiseman MBE, ADPH Vice President, said:

“This is a textbook example of why the alcohol industry should have no role in shaping health policy. Their business model depends on increasing consumption, while public health depends on reducing it. Allowing companies that profit from harm to influence NHS policy undermines prevention, weakens public trust, and costs lives. The parallels with tobacco are impossible to ignore.”

In his Presidential blog last August, Greg Fell, ADPH President, highlighted the risk industry influence posed to the Government’s plan, writing:

“We need not only to recognise and counter the tactics used by industry but also ensure that policy itself is kept free from industry influence so that it can be developed and implemented in a way that will truly improve the public’s health.”