Bottle Battle

The latest fight over wine labels is part of the ongoing struggle between wets and drys

Stanton Peele from the October 1999 issue

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The National Council on Alcoholism called the decision "potentially disastrous." Thurmond immediately proposed legislation that would overturn the BATF's decision and transfer authority for alcohol labels to HHS. The senator considers the bureau too cozy with the industry, and he seems to believe that HHS could use stricter criteria in reviewing labels, taking into account broader health issues associated with alcohol.

But the fate of the Wine Institute's label may not matter if anti-alcohol forces are successful in deleting the positive statements about moderate drinking from the 2000 edition of the Dietary Guidelines. Many of the submissions received by the committee that is working on the guidelines offer the sort of one-sided treatment that typifies a public health establishment preoccupied with alcoholism.

Consider the recommendations of Enoch Gordis, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a subdivision of HHS. After the standard opening sentence, "Alcoholic beverages supply calories but few or no nutrients and can be addictive," Gordis proposes the line, "Individuals who do not now consume alcohol, for religious or any other reasons, should not begin to drink." Is it the government's role to advise people about religious matters? If a nondrinker changes his religious beliefs, and decides he wants to consume alcohol, why is that the government's business?

Tellingly, Gordis does not offer similar words of support for individuals whose religions condone the moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages. Indeed, he would delete from the 2000 edition of the Dietary Guidelines the seemingly noncontroversial statement that "alcoholic beverages have been used to enhance the enjoyment of meals by many societies throughout human history." (Though this sentence has been interpreted as a kind of endorsement, one of the scientists who worked on the 1995 pamphlet told The New York Times "it was written into the guidelines merely to justify having any language about alcohol in the first place.")

Turning to the benefits of alcohol, Gordis tries hard to minimize them. He says the coronary effects of moderate drinking are "primarily seen in men over 45 and post-menopausal women." These two groups are at the highest risk of death from heart disease, so it is not surprising that they are the two groups in which epidemiological studies find the biggest decreases in mortality. But since alcohol is believed to reduce the risk of heart disease by increasing production of HDL (the "good cholesterol"), it stands to reason that moderate drinking earlier in life would help prevent the accumulation of fatty deposits, although the impact of this effect would not be notable until later on, when people are prone to heart attacks.

Gordis also fails to note that all women with risk factors for heart disease--overweight, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol--can reduce their chance of death by consuming alcohol. The Harvard Nurses' Health Study, the major study of the connection between drinking and mortality among women, found that about three-quarters of all subjects had at least one such risk factor and were likely to live longer if they drank moderately.

Gordis emphasizes what he calls ambiguities and contradictions in the research on the coronary benefits of alcohol. He notes that some research shows benefits from drinking can be gained from having as little as one drink every other day. And he goes on to cite dangers not only from heavier drinking but also from moderate drinking (breast cancer, for example).

Neither Gordis nor the Dietary Guidelines ever explain that a large body of persuasive evidence shows that people who drink moderately live longer. The main exception is premenopausal women with a family history of breast cancer, who should abstain or drink only very lightly. That is, when all of alcohol's potential effects are combined, alcohol is beneficial for most individuals. This would seem to be a relevant piece of information for people weighing the costs and benefits of drinking.

At a June meeting of epidemiologists in Montreal, several prestigious research organizations confirmed the link between moderate drinking and increased longevity. One of them was the Alcohol Research Group, the epidemiology center funded by Gordis's NIAAA. The group's study found that men who drank two to four drinks daily had the lowest mortality rate. If it is relevant for Gordis to tell Americans the minimum level of drinking that has been associated with prolonged life, surely it is also relevant to cite the maximum level at which benefits have been measured.

Another study finding a significant reduction in mortality, for both men and women, came from a source even closer to Gordis--the NIAAA's own epidemiology division. NIAAA researcher Deborah Dawson reported that drinkers who were not alcoholics had a significantly lower mortality rate than abstainers.

Epidemiological research is complex and evolving, but it is by now nearly indisputable that alcohol protects against death from heart disease. A large number of Americans do not follow the drinking practices most likely to help them live longer, but this more often involves abstaining than drinking too much. According to surveys, half of Americans have not had a single drink in the last month.

Yet Gordis and like-minded public health officials wish to present what we know about alcohol in the most negative light possible, rather than offering straightforward scientific information. This is consistent with a longstanding anti-alcohol tradition in America, one whose advocates once spoke in the name of religion and morality but now wear the mantle of science. The battle over how to portray alcohol in the Dietary Guidelines and whether to allow wineries to publicize, even obliquely, the benefits of moderate drinking is a battle between those who portray alcohol as an unmitigated evil and those who have a more nuanced view.

Recall that the main objection to the Wine Institute label was based on the expectation that it would foster excessive drinking. In response to that concern, HHS commissioned a survey aimed at assessing how wine drinkers would react to the proposed label language. Only 3 percent of respondents said they would be inclined to drink more. The researchers concluded that "the risk of alcohol abuse resulting from the directional labels is negligible because they will not encourage a change in consumption patterns."

If so, you may wonder, what is the point of the label? Whether or not it actually sells more wine, the industry sees it as an important public relations victory. As Wine Institute President John De Luca puts it, "the label is an essential educational component of our public policy mission to counter efforts in some quarters to mischaracterize wine as a `gateway drug' and a `sin' that warrants higher taxes, trade limitations, and advertising restrictions." It is, in other words, part of the ongoing war over alcohol's place in our society, a war that did not end with Prohibition or its repeal.