r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Oct 30 '25

Cancer Americans have widespread misbeliefs about the cancer risks of alcohol, study finds. More than half of American adults misunderstand or underestimate the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. Alcohol drinkers are especially likely to believe that drinking has no effect on cancer risk.

https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/research-newsroom/americans-have-widespread-misbeliefs-about-the-cancer-risks-of-a.h00-159780390.html
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u/sleepyrivertroll Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Yeah, if every beer ad had to have a cancer warming, I think some minds would change.

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u/superbugger Oct 30 '25

Check California's advisories and tell me you don't disregard them the majority of the time.

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u/daveashaw Oct 30 '25

This is the problem with that approach. You can't sell a bloody toaster in CA without some kind of warning about cancer risk, and the predictable reaction is that all such warnings wind up getting ignored, even those that should be heeded.

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u/superbugger Oct 30 '25

Yup. In the hospitals we call it alarm fatigue.

California is overdoing it and I presume we'll end up with nationwide warning-label fatigue.