.$100
Million Study Will Determine Once and for All If Alcohol Is Healthy (Additional
Coverage)
Bob P. servingalcohol.com
Source: Grub Street
By Clint Rainey
July 5th
With so much confusion
today about alcohol's health effects, people who enjoy themselves a tipple or
two really need to know the risks. (C'mon, it can't prevent heart disease and
cause seven kinds of cancer, right?) Past research does in fact link moderate
consumption of alcohol to several health benefits - chief among them probably
red wine's ties to a healthier heart. But the link has never been proven
definitively, and a recent raft of research has actually moved the dial in the
opposite direction of this hypothesis. To get a better answer, the NIH now says
it's launching a $100 million clinical trial that will focus directly on
whether or not a drink a day can prevent heart attacks.
Here's how the trial is
set up: Sixteen medical centers worldwide will follow almost 8,000 participants
over a six-year period. These subjects will be at least 50 years old and
randomly assigned to either quit drinking entirely or have a single alcoholic
beverage of their choosing every day. Researchers will follow up at the end to
see if the moderate drinkers or abstainers have a higher incidence of heartdisease.
The Times notes critics
have just one problem with the setup, though: Because this is such an expensive
study, the NIH has decided to let the alcohol industry pay for the lion's share
of it. Five of the world's largest alcohol manufacturers - Anheuser-Busch
InBev, Heineken, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, and Carlsberg - have pledged $68
million so far. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which
is overseeing the study, has assured people the industry won't have any
influence: "This study could completely backfire on the alcoholic beverageindustry, and they're going to have to live with it," its director George
Koob says. "The money from the Foundation for the NIH has no strings
attached. Whoever donates to that fund has no leverage whatsoever." What
Koob doesn't note is that he was paid $40,000 in grant money by a liquor
industry lobby group between 1990 and 1994, and he served on its advisory
council from 1999 to 2003. In fact, "many of those involved in the study
have financial links . to alcohol industry money," the Times says.
AB InBev explains it's
been "investing heavily" in efforts to encourage responsible drinking
lately, and that this is just the latest example. A rep tells the Times,
"It's part of our overall commitment to reducing the harmful use of
alcohol." A spokesperson for Pernod Ricard says they "don't want to
have any say," but are "hoping the results nevertheless are going to
be good." The study's lead investigator also adds that this "isn't
anything other than a good old-fashioned NIH trial."
Still, the liquor industry
might have to forgive people for thinking its hopeful involvement seems, at
best, like a poor business decision: Even if the study produces fantastic news
about alcohol's health effects, there's still a chance they could be undercut
if the public distrusts the results on account of the role Big Booze played. If
the results aren't good and end up linking moderate use to bunches of maladies,
the alcohol industry can't really dispute them because it backed the study, and
sales suffer. It's not clear how Smirnoff or Budweiser wins in either scenario.
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