Quality of illegally and informally produced alcohol in Europe: Results from the AMPHORA project.

BACKGROUND

In the WHO region Europe, the average unrecorded adult per capita alcohol consumption was 2.67 L pure ethanol in 2005, which is 22% of the total consumption of 12.20 L. Despite concerns about potential health harms from the chemical composition of unrecorded alcohol, there are surprisingly few data on the problem in the European Region. This study reports the results from the Alcohol Measures for Public Health Research Alliance (AMPHORA) project, which assessed the quality of unrecorded alcohol in a Europe-wide study.

METHODS

Samples of unrecorded alcohol were collected in 16 European countries and chemically analyzed for potentially health-relevant parameters. Thresholds for parameters were defined based on potential health hazards of daily drinking.

RESULTS

The average alcoholic strength of unrecorded wine products was 14.9% vol, and 47.8% vol in unrecorded spirits. One half of the samples (n=57) showed acceptable alcohol quality. The other half (n=58) showed one or several deficits with the most prevalent problem being ethyl carbamate contamination (n=29). Other problems included copper (n=20), manganese (n=16) and acetaldehyde (n=12). All other parameters (including methanol, higher alcohols, phthalates) were only seldom problematic (limit exceedance in less than 10 samples). The price of unrecorded alcohol was approximately 45% of the price of recorded alcohol.

CONCLUSIONS

The major problem regarding unrecorded alcohol appears to be ethanol itself, as it is often higher in strength and its lower price may further contribute to higher drinking amounts. Compared to the health effects of ethanol, the contamination problems detected may be of minor importance as exposure will only in worst-case scenarios reach tolerable daily intakes of these substances.