Scientists in discredited alcohol study may advise US on drinking guidelines
Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health abruptly pulled the plug on an ambitious study of the health effects of moderate alcohol consumption. The reason: The trial’s lead scientist and officials from the federal agency’s own alcohol division had sought $60 million to investigate alcohol manufacturers, a conflict of interest and a violation of federal policy.
Now that scientist and another colleague from the aborted study with ties to the alcohol industry have been appointed to a committee preparing a report on alcohol and health that will be used to update the federal government’s guidelines on alcohol consumption.
The appointments of the two men, Dr. Kenneth Mukamal and Dr. Eric Rimm, both of Harvard, have not yet been completed, according to Megan Lowry, a spokeswoman for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, whose food and nutrition council formed the committee. Members of the the public can comment on the provisional appointments until Wednesday December 6.
Dr. Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, who is in various financial communications that he took money from the alcohol industry, has been nominated to chair the committee.
Many public health researchers are outraged at the prospect of the men influencing a process that will result in official guidelines on alcohol consumption.
“It’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house,” says Dr. Michael Siegel, a public health researcher and visiting professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
The NIH, the nation’s top medical research agency, had halted the $100 million study, which was to be a decade-long international clinical trial of moderate alcohol consumption, after learning that officials from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism had lobbied for beer and spirits. companies to fund the trial and that Dr. Mukamal had gone to industry meetings where he described the proposed trial and indicated that the results would support moderate alcohol consumption. Dr. Mukamai denied any wrongdoing at the time and said he had never received funding from the industry.
An internal NIH investigation into the affair suggested that the trial was designed in such a way as to bias the study in favor of demonstrating a beneficial effect of moderate drinking.
Dr. Rimm has long expressed the view that moderate drinking protects against heart disease. Just last month he said about science and nutrition podcast that people can reduce their risk of heart disease by changing their behavior eating a healthy diet that includes ‘a little bit of alcohol’.
Asked for comment, Dr. Rimm said it was premature because the agreements were not yet final. Dr. Mukamal did not respond to a request for comment.
The new panel will review evidence on the relationship between drinking and a range of health problems, including obesity, cancer, heart disease, cognitive health and all-cause mortality. Research will also be conducted on the effects of drinking while breastfeeding, including the impact on postpartum weight loss; composition and quantity of milk; and infant development.
Although moderate drinking — especially of wine, especially red wine — has long enjoyed something of a health halo, rigorous research in recent years and concerns about bias in industry-funded research have cast doubt on its claimed benefits.
Cancer doctors say that even light drinking can slightly increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer, and can also increase the risk of a common form of esophageal cancer, while heavy drinkers have a much greater risk of cancer of the mouth and throat, cancer of the larynx and liver cancer. and, to a lesser extent, colorectal cancers.
In 2020, when the US Dietary Guidelines were last updated, the government rejected the advice of its scientific advisers to set lower alcohol consumption targets. Citing a growing body of evidence that consuming higher amounts of alcohol is linked to an increased risk of death, the scientists wanted the guidelines to recommend daily alcohol consumption of no more than one drink per day for both men and women, rather than of the current two. drinks per day for men and one per day for women.
Canadian health officials radically revised their alcohol consumption guidelines earlier this year, stating that no amount of alcohol consumption is healthy and recommending that people reduce alcohol consumption as much as possible. The new guidelines were a big change from previous ones, which recommended that women consume no more than 10 drinks per week and men limit themselves to 15.
The new panel that reviews the evidence for the U.S. government will operate under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a nongovernmental body given $1.3 million by Congress to do the work.
Ultimately, the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee updating the federal dietary guidelines for both food and alcohol. But the legislation that allocated the funds says the Secretary of Agriculture is responsible for ensuring that “the process is fully transparent and includes balanced representation of individuals who are unbiased and free from conflicts of interest.”
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, part of HHS, will consider the committee’s report when it makes its recommendations in the next edition of the dietary guidelines on how much alcohol American adults should drink, said Joellen Leavelle, a spokeswoman for the HHS Division of Health Promotion and Communications.
Ms. Lowry said the committee appointments “are currently preliminary, pending our review of any comments received during the current public comment period, as well as a review and discussion of committee composition, balance and potential financial conflicts of interest, according to our standard procedures and policies.” ”