Research indicates that a glass of wine a day raises the chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 per cent
French patriots, French wine drinkers and French wine producers‹in other words, all of France‹have responded angrily to a new Ministry of Health brochure that discourages drinking alcohol, especially wine, for health reasons. The brochure, which is based on findings of the National Cancer Institute, makes for “grim reading” , the paper reports. Among its claims: a single glass of wine per day raises the chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 per cent and drinking alcohol facilitates cancers of the mouth, larynx, esophagus, colon-rectum and breast. Furious wine producers blame France’s tee-totaling president Sarkozy for this new “persecution of wine.” Xavier de Volontat, president of the wine producers’ association in the southwestern Languedoc region refer to it as a new French paradox: “The extremists must not be allowed to take consumers hostage . . . Wine consumption has dropped by 50 per cent over the last 20 years in France but cancer has increased. You have to admit, that’s a paradox.”