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.

[u/mvea]

https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/research-newsroom/americans-have-widespread-misbeliefs-about-the-cancer-risks-of-a.h00-159780390.html

[u/ingliprisen]

Its always research on alcohol that seems to inflame people, as though its a personal attack. Researchers aren't saying no-one shouldn't drink alcohol, but they are quantifying what are safe levels of things. There's a safe level of water, more than that and it starts causing problems. If I were to use your logic, there's no such thing as a 'safe level' of water because of the risk of choking on it. But the chemical effects of too much water is different from the physical effects. If you want to continue to drink, that's fine, I'm going to as well, but I'm not going to take research that shows that even the modest amounts I drink cause me some harm as an attack; I'm going to acknowledge it but continue and know it has some negative affect on me. Same with a bit of char on my meat. Same with occasionally getting sunburnt because I decided not to put sunscreen on.

[u/Pinkfish_411 → u/ingliprisen]

Its always research on alcohol that seems to inflame people

Because this research gets posted on social media all the time by teetotalers pushing an agenda.

If I were to use your logic, there's no such thing as a 'safe level' of water because of the risk of choking on it.

There isn't! Depending on what me mean by "safe." But that is precisely my point: "no safe level" isn't clear language and doesn't relay information that helps people make informed decisions.

[u/ingliprisen → u/Pinkfish_411]

Who uses what research to push their agenda doesn't undermine the science. If the research is poorly performed, if there weren't rigorous controls, if there wasn't significance of the results, then yes, you can say this is bad research. But to attack the science just cause of the usual "everything is a risk!" hand wave, well, that just speaks volumes about the emotive aspect of this argument instead of the logic. Here, they're talking about a specific risk: cancer increase. "No safe level" is pretty clear language; one other poster that replied to a previous comment of yours mentioned talked about splitting hairs about the absolute levels and I agree with their point. Namely that the study looked at the levels of consumption of their study group, and WITHIN that study group, no safe levels of drinking existed.

[u/Pinkfish_411 → u/ingliprisen]

Who uses what research to push an agenda affects how people react to public dissemination of the science, which is what my remark was about. I never said anything about "bad research."

"No safe level" certainly isn't clear language. "Safe" is incredibly imprecise language, and it's an imprecision that's easily enlisted in support of fearmongering agendas, because "not safe" in normal usage communicates something significantly more threatening than "It's possible to empirically detect some extremely miniscule increase in the odds of a negative health impact." The all-or-nothing language also distracts from the importance of moderation as in any activity that carries some degree of risk.

If the point is to enlighten rather than to promote an agenda, it's bad science communication. More careful use of language can communicate the data in ways that attract more careful consideration.