Shortly after dropping two Harvard scientists with financial conflicts of interest, the national organization that formed a committee to evaluate the evidence on alcohol consumption and health chose four new panelists, including another Harvard professor who also has ties financial with the alcohol industry.
The committee's work, under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, will be used to update the federal government's dietary guidelines, which advise Americans on nutrition and diet, including how much they should and should not drink.
Scientists at universities across North America study the health effects of alcohol, and many do not accept industry funding. Instead, the National Academies chose two Harvard colleagues who also published research that strongly suggests that drinking in moderation is good for your health, critics said.
“How could they appoint someone with a history of alcohol financing after removing the other two because of alcohol financing?” said Dr. Michael B. Siegel, professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Siegel is a long-time critic of industry-funded alcohol research.
Many of the committee's other 12 interim members are experts in biostatistics and data analysis; one focuses research on the impact of alcohol on prenatal health. As such, Harvard researchers are likely to exert influence on the committee, Dr. Siegel said.
While it is indisputable that excessive drinking is bad for your health, some studies have found cardiovascular benefits from moderate consumption. But in recent years critics have questioned the methodology used in some of these studies, many of which were conducted by scientists who received financial support from groups funded by the alcohol industry.
Last year, the World Heart Federation released a report that said even small amounts of alcohol can increase the risk of cancer, injury and heart disease, including coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure.
In 2020, when the US dietary guidelines were last updated, the government rejected the advice of its scientific advisers to recommend less alcohol consumption. Guidelines now recommend consuming one drink daily for women and two for men.
“There used to be a consensus that moderate alcohol consumption had health benefits. Now there is no consensus, there is a controversy,” said Tim Stockwell, a scientist at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, whose own work challenges the idea that drinking in moderation has benefits.
“But if there is controversy, get an expert from each side,” he added. Several organizations and individuals had suggested Mr. Stockwell for the committee, but he said he was never approached.
Canadian health officials radically revised their drinking guidelines last year, saying no level of alcohol consumption is healthy and urging people to cut back as much as they can.
“I think they're concerned that the U.S. dietary guidelines will follow Canada's lead,” Dr. Stockwell said of the industry.
Among the four new nominees is Dr. Luc Djousse, an associate professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, who has studied the effects of moderate alcohol consumption on cardiovascular disease.
While he received grants from the National Institutes of Health for his work, he also received funding from the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation, an industry group. He was recently a featured speaker at a Beer and Health Symposium organized by brewers.
Dr. Djousse is also a member of the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research, an organization once closely linked to the alcohol industry, and signed a letter written on behalf of the organization that was published in a medical journal. The group claims it no longer receives money from the alcohol industry.
He has co-written several articles with Dr. Kenneth Mukamal and Dr. Eric Rimm, the Harvard researchers whose nominations were withdrawn from consideration last month.
Dr. Djousse did not respond to requests for comment; nor does Todd Datz, director of communications at the TH Chan School of Public Health.
Dana Korsen, director of media relations for the National Academies, said the committee's list remained tentative during a public comment period that ends Thursday. The committee's first meeting is scheduled for the next day.
Ms. Korsen did not directly respond to questions about Dr. Djousse's funding by the alcohol industry. “As with all study committees, the first meeting will include a discussion about compliance with our conflict of interest and disclosure policies,” she said in an email.
He declined to provide the names of National Academies officials directly involved in the nominations and declined requests for interviews with them.
The lack of transparency “raises the question of whether the National Academies have been co-opted once again,” said Diane Riibe, co-founder of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance, which translates alcohol policy research into practice. of public health.
Dr. Djousse has co-written several articles on moderate alcohol consumption and its supposed benefits with Dr. Mukamal, who led a $100 million clinical trial on moderate alcohol consumption that was supposed to resolve questions about its benefits or harms. .
In 2018, the National Institutes of Health canceled the trial after The New York Times reported that Dr. Mukamal and officials at the NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism had sought $68 million from alcohol manufacturers and beer to fund research, a conflict of interest and a violation of federal policy.
“Dr. Djousse is a close colleague of Dr. Mukamal,” Dr. Siegel wrote in a recent blog post. “Having him on the panel is the next best thing to having Dr. Mukamal himself.”
The other Harvard nominee is Dr. Carlos Camargo, a professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology who also studied moderate alcohol consumption and was chair of the alcohol committee for the 2005 USDA dietary guidelines.
He has also co-written numerous articles with Dr. Mukamal and has found benefits in light alcohol consumption. He declined a request for comment and referred a reporter to the National Academies.
The other two new nominees are Dr. Bruce N. Calonge, associate dean of public health practice at the Colorado School of Public Health and medical director of the state of Colorado's department of public health and environment, who was provisionally selected for head the committee; and Linda Snetselaar, professor of epidemiology and director of the nutrition center at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The public has until the end of the day Thursday to comment on the nominations. Ms. Korsen of the National Academies did not answer questions about how the organization will review public comments that arrive less than 24 hours before the committee's first meeting.
The committee's task is to review the accumulating evidence on the relationship between alcohol consumption and a wide range of health problems, including obesity, cancer, heart disease, cognitive health and all-cause mortality.
It will also examine the effects of drinking while breastfeeding, including the impact on postpartum weight loss, milk composition and quantity, and infant development.
Although moderate consumption, especially of red wine, has long enjoyed a health halo, more rigorous research in recent years and concerns about industry funding have raised questions.
Even light alcohol consumption can slightly increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, as well as a common type of esophageal cancer. Excessive alcohol consumption is linked to a significantly increased risk of mouth and throat cancer, laryngeal cancer, liver cancer, and, to a lesser extent, colorectal cancer.
The National Academies have never been involved in updating dietary guidelines, but Congress allocated them $1.3 million to do the work. Dr. Siegel has called for an investigation into the panel's formation now that researchers with industry ties have been nominated twice.
