British Liver Trust responds to warnings of cirrhosis study

The British Liver Trust has underlined the message of the King's College/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine report published on Friday, 6 January 2006 in The Lancet on the worrying, yet largely ignored, steep increase in deaths from liver cirrhosis.

‘While this is not new data,’ says Alison Rogers, Chief Executive of the British Liver Trust, ‘this study draws much needed attention to the fact that if we continue to ignore the evidence, our future health is increasingly at risk.

‘Against the background of the power of the drinks industry in the UK and the retrograde step of the poorly thought out licensing laws, the number of people developing and dying from cirrhosis is bound to rise.’

‘In addition, there appear to be no plans by Government to monitor the impact on health of the licensing laws and no facility to do so. Indeed, the implementation of the licensing laws has had no input from the Department of Health; the emphasis has been purely on crime and disorder and has remained the responsibility of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

The British Liver Trust has already called for a major Government health campaign related to the risks of excessive alcohol and emphasized the importance of better data collection in the UK. There is still no public funding for either project.