Dr. Steven Quay has a simple, direct message to those who drink alcohol: Stop. It’s bad for you, even in moderation.

Quay, M.D., Ph.D., is the founder of Seattle’s Atossa Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the prevention of breast cancer. He has spent 30 years in medical research, founded half-a dozen startups, and holds 91 patents in 22 fields of medicine.

Quay has long known about the role alcohol plays in breast cancer and many other diseases. Alcohol is now the third leading preventable cause of cancer, and is tied to almost 100,000 cases annually, including 44,180 breast cancer cases. He praises U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s war on alcohol as Murthy completes his term as the nation’s top health educator. Even one or fewer drinks per day increases the risk of breast, mouth and throat cancers.

Late last week, Murthy released an advisory report, “Alcohol and Cancer Risk,” highlighting alcohol use as a leading preventable cause of cancer in the country. He called for updating health warning labels on alcoholic beverages to make them more visible and prominent, noting that surveys show that less than half of Americans aren’t aware that even minimal alcohol consumption increases the risk of cancer. The advisory also seeks to strengthen and expand education efforts, inform patients in clinical settings about risks, and incorporate alcohol-reduction strategies into public cancer-prevention initiatives.

Seattle magazine caught up with Quay after the blockbuster report was released Friday.

There are already warning labels on alcoholic beverages. Why release this advisory now?

There’s a history where when the surgeon general kind of makes one of these proclamations, bigger things happen. I believe is the first time it’s been recognized at that level. If it does anything like cigarettes, AIDS or alcohol-related traffic accidents, it could have an impact.

Does alcohol cause cancer as much as smoking cigarettes?

It probably doesn’t. That’s going to be one of the harder things of getting this widely adopted. It’s important, but it isn’t earth-shattering. (The report says) that 80% to 90% of Americans knew that asbestos, radiation or cigarettes were associated with cancer. With alcohol, it was around only 45%.

Could we start to see billboards and other major advertisements warning against alcohol? Is this something that can gain momentum?

It might be. There’s an interesting history here. In 1957, the Surgeon General said there’s probably a link between cigarettes and cancer. In 1964, an actual advisory went out. But it wasn’t until 1999 when the Department of Justice sued all the tobacco companies, and that triggered a lot of class-action suits around the tobacco industry’s misrepresentation to the American people. I think the alcohol industry kind of needs to watch itself because there’s a playbook here that could really decimate them.

From a medical perspective, just how dangerous is alcohol?

The whole GI tract gets hit, everything from the mouth to the colon. The organ that metabolizes it, the liver, and then its effects on estrogen, which is in the breast. These were already pretty well known and established, at least to the medical community.

Medicine in the United States mostly focuses on treatment, not prevention. Could this advisory have far-reaching ramifications for the entire health care system?

Yes, absolutely. We do not emphasize prevention. Look at the National Cancer Institute, which I interact with a great deal of time. Ninety-seven percent of their budget is treating cancers. Only 3% is prevention. I mean, we make calendars of firefighters because they come in and stop the building from burning. We don’t make them with the people that install the smoke detectors. We are not mentally attuned to prevention, but it’s critical for all of health care, and we should be much more focused.

Is prevention discussed in medical school?

You know how much nutrition education you get? Zero. Really. And probably 55% to 65% of disease is nutrition related. We are too much focused on treating with pharmaceuticals and those sorts of things.

Final words of advice?

In (cutting out alcohol), don’t go to drinks that are high in both glucose and fructose. Fructose (found in many sodas, fruit juices and energy drinks) is such a bad sugar, and we drink so much of it. Just eat healthy foods, drink a lot of water, get your 6,000 steps in and, if you can, avoid alcohol.