Doctors want alcohol warning labels to flag cancer risks

If you drink alcohol, you’ve probably seen — or overlooked — warning labels on the back of bottles.

But those labels haven’t been updated since the late 1980s. Now, researchers say they don’t adequately advertise alcohol consumption’s biggest potential health consequence: cancer, including breast cancer.

In a perspective article in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers warn that the labels are outdated and vague about alcohol consumption’s risks, despite the public health burden of drinking.