Why Europe’s Medical Community Must Take a Stand on Alcohol Harm
Across the European region, alcohol is responsible for 800,000 deaths annually. Among young Europeans, one in four deaths is caused by alcohol. The damage is visible in hospitals, in families, in communities, and it is entirely preventable.
In May 2025, a new chapter began as WHO/Europe launched the European Health Alliance on Alcohol at the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) Congress 2025. The Alliance is a coalition of medical, clinical, and health professional organisations determined to tackle the harm caused by alcohol. We had the privilege of witnessing this moment and left with a renewed sense of urgency and hope which are both essential as we prepare to shape a new vision for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases at the UN High-level meeting in September. Why now? Because more and more people, in and out of the medical community, are starting to recognise that alcohol harm is not an individual problem. It is a system failure.
We live in environments where alcohol is cheap, readily available, and aggressively promoted. Alcohol is treated like a harmless commodity. Meanwhile, doctors, nurses, and researchers are left to treat the consequences: liver disease, heart disease, cancer, mental health disorders, accidents, and premature death. It is time to shift from cure to prevention. We cannot keep asking individuals to “drink responsibly” while the environments around them drive up consumption. Those environments need to be changed. And we already know how. The WHO’s ‘Quick Buys’, including higher taxation, marketing bans, and restrictions on availability, are among the most cost effective interventions in public health. They save lives. They work fast. Just look at Lithuania: after adopting strong alcohol policies, the country saw immediate drops in consumption and alcohol-related mortality, as well as a rise life expectancy. These are not abstract recommendations. They are real solutions backed by data, ready to be implemented.
So why are they not? There is a fierce resistance. The alcohol industry is no passive observer. It actively works to delay, dilute, and derail effective public health measures. Through dedicated policy teams, the industry builds political alliances and engages directly with governments to frame regulatory discussions in ways that protect commercial interests. Let’s be clear: this is the new tobacco playbook, more polished, more subtle, but just as dangerous.
That is why WHO/Europe developed the Alcohol Policy Playbook, a practical tool to help policymakers, advocates, and public health professionals recognise and counter industry interference. For key alcohol-related issues, the Playbook presents common industry narratives and counters them with public health evidence. For health professionals, there is a moral duty to respond. That is why the European Health Alliance on Alcohol matters. It is a unified front, one that brings together Europe’s most trusted voices to defend the right to health. The health community is stronger when its members act together. When cardiologists, hepatologists, pediatricians, oncologists, addiction specialists, public health experts, and family doctors speak with one voice, they are impossible to ignore.
This is not just about alcohol. It is about reclaiming health policy from vested interests and restoring evidence as the basis for decision-making. And it is about protecting the next generation from a product that too often claims lives before they even really had the chance to begin. The launch of the European Health Alliance on Alcohol is more than the creation of a new organisation, it is the beginning of a movement that refuses to accept preventable death as the status quo. A movement that will demand public health above profit.
To all medical professionals across Europe: this is an opportunity. Join the Alliance! Bring your credibility, your expertise, and your compassion to help deliver better health and well-being to all.