—Biased Report Created for and Rejected by Federal Agencies’ Dietary Guidelines, Published in Journal in Continued Attempt to Demonize Moderate Drinking—
Salem, OREGON — The National Association of Wine Retailers (NAWR) today issued a statement addressing the recent inappropriate and unauthorized publication of the biased and manipulated “Alcohol Intake and Health Study” in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The study buried positive outcomes from moderate alcohol consumption in an effort to advance an anti-alcohol agenda.
Federal health officials properly excluded this controversial study from the recently issued 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans after investigating procedural misconduct and outcome bias. However, the activist researchers behind the shelved project bypassed federal oversight to publish their work independently in an academic journal without authorization—demonstrating how neo-prohibitionist efforts to indict moderate drinking rely on manipulated data and statistical double standards.
A Predetermined Agenda Rejected by Federal Policymakers
The study originated under the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD). Findings by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform documented why federal agencies rightly chose not to adopt the report:
Circumventing Lawful Review:
Congress specifically funded and directed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to conduct an independent review of alcohol science for the Dietary Guidelines. Federal subagencies circumvented this legal mandate by setting up an unauthorized, duplicative study group inside ICCPUD.
Advocacy-Aligned Panel:
House Oversight records revealed that all six members of the ICCPUD scientific review panel were affiliated with domestic or international anti-alcohol advocacy groups, tasked with engineering a predetermined conclusion that “no amount of alcohol is safe” to mirror Canada’s restrictive guidelines.
Bypassing Government Approval:
When federal officials declined to adopt or finalize the study as official policy, the contracted researchers instigated the unauthorized release of the taxpayer-funded draft in an academic journal to keep their anti-alcohol narrative alive in the media.
Concealed Health Benefits and Mathematical Distortions
Beyond the institutional misconduct exposed by Congress, an analysis of the study’s underlying math reveals deliberate efforts to discredit moderate alcohol consumption while burying positive health outcomes:
-Concealing Documented Survival and Health Benefits:
The paper publicly claims there is “no protective net effect” at low levels of drinking. Yet the authors’ own printed data tables prove important protective effect from moderate alcohol consumption:
• Lower Overall Mortality: In Table 1, individuals consuming 1 to 3 drinks per week had negative excess deaths compared to lifetime non-drinkers, meaning moderate drinkers had lower net mortality. For adults aged 70 and older, this survival advantage persisted through 7 drinks per week.
• Statistically Significant Stroke Reductions: Table 2 reports an 8% to 10% lower risk of dying from an ischemic stroke for people drinking up to 7 drinks per week (RR = 0.90 to 0.92).
• Up to 30% Lower Diabetes Deaths: Women consuming 7 to 14 drinks weekly experienced a statistically significant 26% to 30% reduction in diabetes deaths (RR = 0.70 to 0.74).
• 36% Reduction in Heart Disease: The report’s own narrative review confirms that moderate drinkers who avoid bingeing have a 36% lower risk of ischemic heart disease compared to abstainers.
The authors dismissed these positive findings in their summary text, telling the public that no health protections exist.
-Treating a Glass of Dinner Wine Like Drunk Driving:
To mathematically offset the significant cardiovascular and metabolic benefits of moderate drinking, the researchers injected massive physical injury risks into their computer model. They pulled accident and trauma data from emergency rooms involving individuals who were heavily intoxicated (blood alcohol levels of 0.08% or 0.10% and above) and averaged those acute risks across daily intake. This math treats a responsible adult enjoying a glass of wine with dinner as if they face the same likelihood of causing a fatal car crash or getting into a bar fight as an intoxicated binge drinker.
-Science by Popularity Contest:
Real epidemiology systematically pools all qualified evidence. Instead, the authors had a handpicked panel of affiliated researchers cast ballots on their “top three” favorite papers, using only the single highest-voted study to build their computer model while discarding competing research that showed different results.
-A Glaring Scientific Double Standard:
The researchers explicitly admitted that standard statistical significance testing “did not play a major role” in their report. When evaluating evidence of health benefits, they dismissed the data because the margins of error touched zero. Yet when setting scary danger thresholds to advocate for tighter government guidelines, they ignored massive margins of error. For men, their supposed danger line of 6.5 drinks per week had a margin of error spanning all the way from less than 1 drink to 13.5 drinks—a range so broad it is statistically meaningless.
Statement from the National Association of Wine Retailers
“Federal health officials made the correct decision when they excluded this flawed ICCPUD project from the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” said Tom Wark, Executive Director of the National Association of Wine Retailers.
“The publication of this study in an academic journal does not make its data any more credible. It merely illustrates the lengths to which neo-prohibitionist advocates will go to manufacture risk where little exists. By applying double standards to their own statistics, hiding positive health outcomes among moderate wine consumers, and attributing drunk-driving accidents to moderate mealtime wine consumption, these researchers sought to scare the American public rather than inform it.
“Public health policy must be built on transparent, reproducible science, not agenda-driven modeling designed to produce a predetermined result. We commend policymakers for relying on lawful, balanced scientific reviews and rejecting this attempt to rewrite dietary guidance.”
About the National Association of Wine Retailers
The National Association of Wine Retailers (NAWR) represents independent fine wine retailers, wine clubs, and online merchants across the United States. NAWR advocates for fair, modernized alcohol regulations, a free and competitive marketplace for consumers, and public policy grounded in objective, peer-reviewed science. For more information, visit nawr.org.