EXPERT ADVISORY – OCTOBER 16, 2025 – R0122

As Senate considers legislation to add cancer warning labels to alcohol packaging across Canada, a Brock University expert says the proposed change will mislead consumers and skew perceptions of alcohol’s effects.

Brock University Professor and Chair of Health Sciences Dan Malleck says the labels, if approved, would “present a highly unbalanced and distorted understanding of the effects of alcohol on the human body and, more importantly, on human life.”

Malleck studies alcohol in the social and cultural environment and researches the history of alcohol policy. His work has shown that during the temperance movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries, misleading impressions of the effects of alcohol were used to advance prohibition.

“Today’s proposed warning labels perpetuate that pattern,” he says, as they associate alcohol with highly risky behaviour to encourage people to abstain from drinking.

While there are some risks associated with alcohol consumption, there are also “clear benefits that are ignored with such labelling,” Malleck says.

Research shows that moderate drinking is protective against cardiovascular disease, the single biggest cause of premature deaths in Canada and the United States, he says.

Additionally, a detailed report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released in December 2024 concluded that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of all-cause mortality, which is the total number of deaths in a population due to any cause.

The proposed warning labels, however, focus on a narrow group of cancers for which risk increases marginally from alcohol consumption. This does not accurately portray the full picture, Malleck says.

“Saying ‘alcohol causes cancer’ is misleading since ‘cancer’ is a broad spectrum of conditions,” he says. “Moderate alcohol consumption has been linked to a slightly increased risk of seven forms of cancer, most of which are highly treatable.”

According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), the risk of developing oral cavity and pharynx cancer — the cancer with the highest risk from alcohol — increases approximately 90 per cent at 14 drinks per week.

“That means someone who drinks 14 drinks per week nearly doubles their likelihood of contracting a cancer that is relatively rare,” Malleck says, adding there’s more to consider in this data.

Data indicates the annual death rate from this form of cancer is 5.2 per 100,000, or 0.005 per cent, Malleck says.

“A 90 per cent increased risk equals about a 0.0098 per cent rise, meaning 9.8 in 100,000 people,” he says. “And that is for people who consume 14 drinks a week, which is on the high end of previously accepted drinking guidelines. This is likely not describing people who enjoy a glass of wine at dinner, even if they have two on the weekends.”

Bill S-202 — a revival of legislation shelved when the spring election was called earlier this year — has prompted comparisons between tobacco and alcohol packaging that Malleck says are also problematic.

“The toxicity of tobacco is exponentially higher than that of alcohol,” he says. “To reach the level of cancer risk presented in regular tobacco smoking, a drinker would have to consume so much that they would die of alcohol poisoning.”

Dan Malleck, Brock University Professor and Chair of Health Sciences, is available for media interviews on this topic.

For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

*Sarah Ackles, Communications Specialist, Brock University [email protected] or 289-241-5483 

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