“The attack on Italian wine we are witnessing in these days has nothing scientific about it, and this is confirmed by the official numbers of research institutes”. This was stated by the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima) which denies the health alarms related to the consumption of wine products and – with a note – intervenes on the Irish decision to post health warnings on bottles such as those on cigarette packets.
“It is not clear why wanting to tackle the problem of carcinogenicity of ethanol – explains the president of Sima, Alessandro Miani – and hypocritically sweep the fine particles that populate the daily life of our cities under the rug, with the European Environment Agency (EEA) which in the latest report on air quality expressly mentioned the Po Valley as one of the places with the most unhealthy air in Europe”. And “to think – adds Miani – that atmospheric particulate matter (fine particles, Pm10, Pm2.5 and so on) is responsible, according to the EEA, for over 400,000 premature deaths every year in Europe, with Italy ranks with 80,000 deaths per year, more than 4 times the number of deaths related to alcohol consumption which, according to data from the Higher Institute of Health, causes about 17,000 deaths a year in Italy between cirrhosis of the liver, tumors, cardiovascular diseases and road accidents related to drinking”.
This “does not mean wanting to underestimate the problem of alcohol – Miani points out – which must be tackled not so much by attacking Italian wine production, as by contrasting, for example, the increasingly widespread consumption of spirits, especially among the very young. Istat data show that spirits are on the rise and constitute the vast majority of alcoholic products consumed by the very young”. What “what is needed, if anything, is a real campaign against the consumption of alcohol by young people, remembering that the first cause of death of our children between the ages of 14 and 24 is not cancer, but alcohol-related road accidents”. related,” he concludes.
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