|PIC1|The UK’s largest organisation of Christian doctors has backed the call from Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson for a minimum price on alcohol.

Under his proposal, no drinks could be sold for less than 50 pence per unit of alcohol they contain.

The Chief Medical Officer said on Monday that the measure would add around £1 a month to the drinks bill of a moderate drinker but more for those heavy drinkers who were at risk.

He said after ten years such a move would lead to 3,400 fewer deaths and 100,000 fewer hospital admissions a year.

CMF General Secretary Peter Saunders said the government needed to embrace evidence-based solutions.

"The current education-based ‘sensible drinking’ strategy for countering alcohol misuse is not evidence-based, but is rather built on the false presuppositions that an intemperate minority contribute the bulk of alcohol-related problems in the community and that people make rational and objective decisions about their drinking," he said.

"Research shows clearly that alcohol-related morbidity and mortality are directly related to the quantity of alcohol consumed by a population, which in turn is directly related to the availability and acceptability of alcohol in that population.

"Price is the major determinant of alcohol consumption, and taxation is a very effective preventive tool."

Dr Saunders warned that Britain was facing "severe" problems as a result of its excessive alcohol consumption.

"There has been a strong tradition of temperance associated with the Christian church, not least as a response to the appalling social problems caused by alcohol in previous generations," he said.

"As well as more hospital admissions, we are seeing such problems again – particularly with much greater consumption by younger women, and the increase in sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies associated with irresponsible behaviour caused by excessive drinking."