Even telegenic pegs are injurious

The nation’s health, we must realise, isn’t the concern only of the Health Ministry. It is everybody’s concern, so television commercials and cricket sponsorships matter as much as, say, universal immunisation or mid-day meals. And if Sushma Swaraj asks foreign satellite channels to desist from airing alcohol ads, there’s nothing swadeshi or moralistic about it. Because alcohol is a public health problem, and it is everybody’s business to stop glamourising it, at least for the sake of the next generation at whom the Jadeja-Ganguly commercial and the ubiquitous Wills logo are directed. It is this generation, says the World Health Organisation (WHO), that is highly vulnerable to "acutealcohol effects" because of their lower tolerance levels, their lack of experience with drinking, and their tendency to go on binges, or to experiment with designer drugs to obtain a double high.

In 1990, according to WHO estimates, alcohol was responsible for 1.2 percent of all deaths and disability-adjusted life years lost in India. Think about it each time you reassure yourself recalling that news story which told you two pegs of alcohol a day keeps heart disease away. Think about it whenever a scientific-sounding story informs you that wine is loaded with antioxidants, which slow down the aging process. (Interestingly, at the Fourth International Conference of Preventive Cardiology in Montreal last year, we were served the best Bordeaux wine, and the Canadian media went to town with the wine-being-good-for-the-heart story!). The truth is that no one stops at two pegs. And that fresh grape juice, or fresh fruit and vegetables generally, are healthier sources of antioxidants.

Here’s what WHO has to say:"Alcohol consumption has been found to reduce, in certain age groups (this may be news to you because news stories don’t add this caveat), the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. Despite this individual benefit, the harm associated with the misuse of alcohol constitutes a major public health problem in both developed and developing countries." Alcohol, we are told, accounts for 3-4 percent of the annual global burden of disease and injury; it has also been implicated in a huge number of hospital admissions, road traffic deaths, industrial accidents, as well as cases of drowning, homicide and suicide.

Our policy-makers are still to respond to alcohol abuse as a public health issue, burdened as they are by Mahatma Gandhi’s moralistic obiter dicta, though there’s mounting international evidence pointing in that direction. Recent studies in South Africa, for instance, have shown that alcohol abuse costs the country US$1.2 billion a year, being responsible for half of all road accidents, 60 percent ofpedestrian injuries and deaths, and 60 percent of homicides. So, the moral of the story is that there’s nothing moralistic about asking for restraint from foreign television networks. Foreign television channels must fall in line with international practice and learn to live without the Rs 100 crore in advertising revenue that liqour commercials earn for them. But it may be unreal to expect foreign entities to sacrifice their bottomline for India’s health. Sushma Swaraj, therefore, will have to do more than make requests.

For starters, she must push Doordarshan to clean up its act. It may be run by an autonomous corporation, but that does not give it the licence to be a party to an advertising sleight of hand directed at Generation Next. The minister must then pay some attention to the Government of India’s first faltering step towards policing the airwaves, namely, the Cable Network Act, 1995. Surprisingly, the Act is silent on tobacco and liqour advertising, which presents Shastri Bhawan with an enormousopportunity to amend it the way it wants to. It is time for Ms Swaraj to back her good intentions with an amendment long overdue. The Act must be made unambiguous on one point: no cable operator will be allowed to beam a satellite network that carries tobacco and liqour commercials, overtly or in some disguise. Just this one step will deny tobacco and liqour brands the glamour they badly need to legitimise their death machines. Denial of information, moreover, is the first step to limiting access. It’s a small loss of freedom, but the health spin-offs shall more than adequately compensate for it.