About 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths a year in the United States are tied to alcohol, according to then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. He gave those figures to NPR on January 3, 2025, as he released an advisory asking Congress to put a cancer warning on alcohol labels.
“Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer behind tobacco and obesity,” Murthy said. He was due to leave office later that month.
Seven cancers
The advisory links drinking to seven types of cancer: breast, colorectal, esophagus, liver, mouth, throat and voice box. Murthy told NPR’s Steve Inskeep the science has firmed up over the years. His main worry is awareness. “Most people don’t know about this link,” he said, and he put the share of Americans who know alcohol is connected to cancer risk at under half.
Amount matters, he said. More drinking means higher risk, and lower levels mean lower risk. He could not give a precise safe level, since that depends on a person’s genetics, family history and environmental exposures. But the data show a significant rise in risk even at current guideline levels of one drink a day for women and two for men. “If you drink regularly, keep in mind that less is better when it comes to reducing your cancer risk,” he said.
The label
Alcohol bottles already carry a surgeon general’s warning about two risks: drinking during pregnancy, and drinking while driving or operating heavy machinery. Murthy wants Congress to add a third, cancer. When the first two were introduced, he said, they became common knowledge and shaped behavior.
Inskeep raised the 1964 smoking report, which his own parents heeded by quitting. Do people still listen? Murthy said they do, though they now get information from far more places than in 1964. The tobacco report was followed the next year by a congressional warning-label law, and then by campaigns from parents, community leaders and schools. He pointed to his own term, in which youth mental health, loneliness and social media became national conversations.
Donald Trump had nominated Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a Fox News contributor and urgent care physician, to succeed Murthy. Murthy said he had not yet spoken with her.
Anyone with questions about their own drinking and cancer risk should talk to their doctor.
