IJE Advance Access originally published online on September 26, 2007
International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37(1):219; doi:10.1093/ije/dym189
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Letters to the Editor |
Reply to Absinthe and tobacco—a new look at an old problem?
1Department of Psychiatry, Interdisciplinary Center of Psychiatric Epidemiology, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands.
2EMGO Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam The Netherlands.
3Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
*Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry, Interdisciplinary Center of Psychiatric Epidemiology, University Medical Center Groningen, PO Box 30001, 9700 RB, Groningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: martijn.huisman{at}med.umcg.nl
In reply to our article on the potential lessons to be learned from the history of absinthe policy to current public health, Lachenmeier and Nathan-Maister point toward what they consider to be an unsubstantiated myth about pre-ban absinthe—i.e. that it was more dangerous than current absinthes because of higher thujone contents.1 They point out that our own reference to this issue can be traced back to an earlier publication in the British Medical Journal which, as the authors have recently argued, might be based on a misconception, but has nevertheless been included in the reference lists of a good many papers (including our own). These authors’ own recent paper––which appeared in print after our article was written––presents the results of a series of calculations of thujone concentrations in absinthe based on original recipes. 2 As mentioned in their letter, these calculations showed that mean thujone contents of pre-ban absinthe may have ranged mostly below the current EU restrictions of 35 mg/kg. The authors argue further that this point is of public health relevance as the supposed high thujone content of pre-ban absinthe might be taken as evidence for the existence of a condition called ‘absinthism’.
Although their contribution to the thujone-concentration debate should be acknowledged, the authors will have understood from our article that our line of reasoning did not depend in any way on a supposed existence of the disorder of ‘absinthism’, or absinthe having any effects other than those due to ethanol. Indeed, in the same paragraph from which the authors cite us, we mention that the problems that were observed in tandem with absinthe consumption should be linked to poverty and social standing. We have taken some effort to point out that the real public health relevance lies with the similarity in the social patterning of absinthe and tobacco use.3
It may be worth restating our message again. Our article was meant to demonstrate that major public health threats will recur as long as the underlying social causes of these threats are left to endure. Currently, our lack of identification of and attempts to intervene on these social causes presents the most challenging of problems with the current public health model that is central to the fields of health promotion and disease prevention.4 It is no secret that the impact of this problem is felt most strongly in those groups who are already economically and socially disadvantaged, as long as this challenge has not been met.
Acknowledgement
We want to thank the authors for pointing out more interesting information that might be relevant to our message.
Conflict of interest: None declared.
References
1 Lachenmeier DW, Nathan-Maister D. Absinthe and tobacco – a new look at an old problem? (comment on: Absinthe – is its history relevant for current public health? By Huisman, Brug, and Mackenbach). In: Int J Epidemiol. (2008) 37:217–19. In press.
2 Lachenmeier DW, Nathan-Maister D. Systematic misinformation about thujone in pre-ban absinthe. Deut Lebensm-Rundsch (2007) 103:255–62.
3 Huisman M, Brug J, Mackenbach J. Absinthe – is its history relevant for current public health? In: Int J Epidemiol. (2008) 37:219.
4 Syme SL. The prevention of disease and promotion of health: the need for a new approach. Eur J Public Health (2007) 17:329–30.
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  M. Huisman, J. Brug, and J. P Mackenbach Reply to Absinthe and tobacco--a new look at an old problem? Int. J. Epidemiol., February 1, 2008; 37(1): 219 - 219. [Full Text] [PDF]
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