US government leaders involved with supporting, conducting and funding research into the effects of alcohol use have had extensive contacts with alcohol companies and trade associations. Credit:There is growing evidence that the alcohol industry uses a variety of strategies to influence public policy in a way that is advantageous to its own corporate interests, rather than the interest of public health.
The researchers—Gemma Mitchell, Ph.D., and Jim McCambridge, Ph.D.—found that the NIAAA leaders provided the alcohol industry with extensive information aboutand its policy implications. The NIAAA leaders communicated often with their industry contacts via email, telephone, and in-person meetings. The authors also mention the problem of the"revolving door": Some NIAAA leaders subsequently went to work for industry. This is one way in whichare forged between NIAAA leadership and key industry groups, allowing for the free flow of privileged information and other questionable practices.
"Ongoing relationships between NIAAA leaders and the alcohol industry meant that industry representatives could access privileged information on a wide range of topics, from the US Dietary Guidelines to alcohol and cancer," says Mitchell."Our findings are hugely concerning, and we hope the NIAAA and National Institutes of Health will regard this report not as presenting achallenge to be managed, but as posing a set of major scientific challenges to which it must rise.