Two senior advisers to Public Health England have threatened to quit after the agency launched a major campaign in partnership with a body partly funded by the alcohol industry.
Prof Sir Ian Gilmore and Prof John Britton, who are each co-chairs of public health advisory boards, said their concerns had been ignored and that they would quit if the partnership between PHE and Drinkaware was not scrapped.
Gilmore, in a statement released on Monday via the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA) which he also chairs, said the alcohol industry “should not have a role in providing health information to the general public”, saying that such campaigns were “more likely to improve the reputation of global alcohol corporations than improve the health of the nation”.
He added: “It is our view that PHE is making a serious mistake in partnering with the alcohol industry.”
The criticism followed the launch of PHE’s drink-free days campaign, aimed at reducing alcohol consumption. “The campaign will be encouraging middle-aged drinkers to use the tactic of taking more days off from drinking as a way of reducing their health risks from alcohol,” health officials said.
It has been run in conjunction with the alcohol education charity, Drinkaware, which stressed its independence from the industry. However, it stated it was “funded largely by voluntary and unrestricted donations from UK alcohol producers, retailers and supermarkets”. In the view of the two advisers, that renders it unsuitable for such a partnership.
In a letter to the Times, separate to the AHA statement, Gilmore and Britton said health officials had failed to “learn the lessons from the use by the tobacco and alcohol industries of voluntary agreements and other partnerships with health bodies to undermine, water down or otherwise neutralise policies to reduce consumption”.
They said: “We feel our respective roles as co-chairmen of the Alcohol Leadership and Tobacco Control Implementation Boards of PHE are undermined and must cause us to consider our positions if the partnership with Drinkaware is not terminated with immediate effect.”
Duncan Selbie, the chief executive of PHE, said: “We think our advice on drink-free days is easily understandable, pragmatic and sensible. PHE is steadfast in its ambition to reduce the harms that drinking too much alcohol can cause and we will work together with any partner that speaks to the evidence and shares the same commitment.”
Sir Leigh Lewis, the chair of the Drinkaware Trust, said: “Drinkaware is an independent charity, which is not part of, and does not speak on behalf of, the alcohol industry. It is saddening to see that widely refuted false allegations about our independence are being used to undermine serious and genuine attempts to help people moderate their drinking and improve knowledge about the long-term health risks.”
