Beer, wine and liquor manufacturers have expressed concern that the committee conducting the study is staffed by anti-alcohol activists, and more than 100 members of Congress are calling on the U.S. government to improve the health of alcohol. It called for an influential study on risks to be “shut down.”
in letter This week, U.S. lawmakers, including New York Representatives Nicole Malliotakis and Mike Lawler, highlighted the fact that the investigation is being conducted by a group called the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Underage Drinking Prevention (ICCPUD). I grabbed it.
Alcohol industry executives are concerned that the study could include stricter recommendations against alcohol consumption as advice for the U.S. government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are scheduled to be updated every five years starting in 2025. are.
“If the guidelines change and consumers reduce their alcohol intake, there will be a ripple effect,” said Michael Kaiser, the industry group's executive director. wine americahe told the Post. “People may buy fewer bottles for home consumption and wait until they go out on the weekend.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has not publicly commented on the decision to hire ICCPUD for the study and did not respond to The Post's request for comment.
“HHS hasn't given any explanation, and that's the crux of the issue,” Kaiser said. “All signs point to an anti-alcohol movement.”
Lawmakers from beer, wine, and liquor-producing states such as California, Washington, and Kentucky broke ICCPUD's secret process and found that the group's researchers were “not properly vetted for conflicts of interest.” '' was reported to have been claimed. Monday's letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack.
The researchers include Dr. Tim Naimi, who previously recommended that adult men limit their intake to one drink a day, according to the U.S. government's 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Since 2015, he has been cutting back on the recommended two drinks a day. DGA recommends one drink per day for women.
Other members of the six-member DGA committee include Jürgen Rehm, senior scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health; Kevin Shields is a scientist who runs the World Health Organization's Addiction Center.
Last year, the WHO report “No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health,” it concluded, the first dire warning from an influential global non-profit organization.
Among the signatories of the letter is Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), who on September 30 asked the Department of Agriculture how the ICCPUD findings were collected and It has subpoenaed documents calling for more transparency about what will be used to set new dietary guidelines.
A week later, 110 members of Congress asked both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health, a separate group, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), which has long been responsible for research on alcohol consumption, and the Congress-approved research. .
They also complained that “all but one public meeting held in early August provided limited opportunity for interested stakeholders to comment or follow up.”
Another industry association representing alcoholic beverage manufacturers –American Distilled Spirits Council – Accused ICCPUD of “overreach” and pushing “biased anti-alcoholist” policies.
“We want to do it the same way we've always done it,” Kaiser said of NASEM's decades-old role in shaping alcohol recommendations.
Not everyone in the scientific community is against alcohol.
“It's easy to think that consuming large amounts of alcohol is so bad that even less alcohol must be at least somewhat bad, but the science doesn't exist,” says one person. harvard public health August editorial.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the wine industry, and red wine in particular, benefited from research showing that drinking vino was healthy, but “now the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that the modern narrative “Every ounce of alcohol has been suggested to be dangerous,” the magazine said. Editor.
“They say drinking one glass for lunch can kill you,” wine importer Michael Yurch complained in an interview with the Post. “Why did you suddenly feel unwell?”
Global wine consumption fell 4% last year, the lowest in 27 years, as consumers suffered from inflation-driven price increases and wine lost market share to spirits, industry experts said. It became.
In the first seven months of 2024, U.S. consumption of distilled spirits decreased by 3% and beer consumption decreased by 3.5%, according to global beverage data and analytics company IWSR.
According to the report, young people are drinking less alcohol than previous generations, and non-alcoholic drinks are seen as a rapidly growing niche market. Experts say the legalization of marijuana in many states is also contributing to the decline in alcohol sales.
