• Posted September 8, 2025

HHS Withdraws Report Linking Alcohol To Higher Cancer Risks

Federal health officials have withdrawn a government report warning that even small amounts of alcohol could raise the risk of cancer and other serious health problems. 

The move has sparked tons of debate among researchers, advocacy groups and industry leaders just before new updates to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines were to be released.

Written by researchers for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Alcohol Intake and Health Study warned that even one drink a day boosts the risk of liver cirrhosis, oral and esophageal cancers and injuries. 

Researchers said they were told that the report would not be submitted to Congress as originally planned.

“What people need to know is that the risk of serious morbidities and mortality, and chronic disease, increases as alcohol consumption increases, and it even increases at low levels of consumption,” a report co-author, Katherine Keyes, told The New York Times. She is an epidemiology professor at Columbia University.

The Alcohol Intake and Health Study is one of two reports that were meant to inform updated Dietary Guidelines on alcohol consumption.

A separate report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) reached a conclusion long supported by the industry. Its stance: Moderate drinking may be linked to fewer deaths overall and fewer heart attack and stroke deaths compared to not drinking entirely, The Times said. 

However, it acknowledged a small but significant increase in breast cancer risk for women.

Some panelists involved in that report faced criticism over financial ties to alcohol makers, though NASEM denies that the industry influenced its conclusions, The Times reported.

Meanwhile, the alcohol industry has openly supported NASEM’s findings, arguing that the HHS-backed study was biased. 

“The Dietary Guidelines should be guided by a preponderance of sound science, not the personal ideologies of a handful of researchers,” an industry-supported advocacy group, Science Over Bias, said in a statement.   

Advocates have also accused HHS of suppressing data that could inform public health policy.

Mike Marshall is chief executive of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance, a nonprofit focused on reducing alcohol-related harms.

“They’re burying the report so the information about the health consequences is not widely known,” he told The Times.

Researchers behind the shelved study say they plan to submit their findings to a peer-reviewed medical journal instead.

Growing research has challenged older studies suggesting that moderate drinking might be harmless or even beneficial. Studies now increasingly point to alcohol’s role in cancer risk.

Earlier this year, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for warning labels on alcoholic beverages, citing evidence that drinking is linked to breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies. 

Murthy estimated that alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, The Times reported.

The academy's report found that even occasional heavy drinking can cancel out any small potential benefits, such as a reduced risk of ischemic stroke.

“The key message is that drinking two drinks a day may be moderate from a social perspective, but when it comes to health, it’s a pretty risky amount,” a study co-author, Dr. Timothy Naimi, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, told The Times.

“A man who drinks two drinks every day on average has a 1 in 25 chance of dying prematurely from alcohol,” he said.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on the risks of alcohol use.

SOURCE: The New York Times, Sept. 5, 2025