UK medical journal declares war on gambling-related harm

The UK’s biggest medical journal has launched its first Commission on Gambling to undertake an international “scientific inquiry” into gambling-related harm.The commission, created by The Lancet Public Health, will be led by Dr Heather Wardle of the University of Glasgow, Professor Louisa Degenhardt from the University of New South Wales and Dr Shekhar Saxena of Harvard University.Writing in the journal, the group said gambling was an “urgent, neglected, understudied and worsening public health predicament” and called for immediate action to be taken.The group pointed to the recent reclassification of gambling-related harm as a disorder by the World Health Organisation (WHO and has called for a refocusing of efforts on public health grounds.It also questioned the role that governments play in determining policy, in a reference to the recent 2005 Gambling Act review launched by the UK government in December.“Gambling is a highly profitable industry, but policy makers should not ignore the substantial threats to health and wellbeing that exist,” the group said.“The normalisation of gambling in many countries, its widespread and easy accessibility, and governments’ addiction to revenues from gambling could be a threat to reaching the sustainable development goals,” it added.The journal pointed to a lack of studies being conducted into gambling-related harm on public health grounds but said the scarcity of evidence was not a “justification for inaction” on the issue.“The Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling will apply a public health lens,” the group wrote.“Conscious of the challenges ahead – nationally and globally, in high-income and low-income settings, today and post-Covid-19 – the commission will be science led, international, multidisciplinary and will aim for transformational change in policy and political action.“Gambling and its related health harms have been ignored and hidden from public health scrutiny for too long – our commission intends to correct this aberration,” the group added.