
A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised - YeGoblynQueenne
https://undark.org/article/mach15-alcohol-nih-industry-funding/
======
exhilaration
This article from 2017 appears to be the New York Times reporting (mentioned
in the article but not linked directly) that brought down this trial:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/well/eat/alcohol-
national...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/well/eat/alcohol-national-
institutes-of-health-clinical-trial.html)

------
cbr
_> patients are known to be highly inconsistent when reporting their own
alcohol consumption. Answers patients provide depend on many factors,
including the doctor-patient relationship. And patients’ spouses often
disagree with their partners’ assessment of their drinking. The MACH15 trial
had some sophistication built in to it, including the use of random
smartphone-based check-ins for patients. But while some evidence suggests that
smartphone-based self-reporting on alcohol consumption often contradicts
patients hindsight reports, MACH15 had no ability to tease out which patients
would adhere to the smartphone check-ins, and which were providing accurate
accounts of their consumption. In essence, the NIH was making a $100 million
gamble that volunteers would portray their alcohol consumption accurately._

This doesn't seem like a problem with the study design to me. You're
effectively assessing the effect of _telling_ people to drink "zero" vs
"moderate" alcohol as opposed to the the effect of _actually drinking_ those
quantities, but since one major use for a study like this is to figure out
what doctors should be telling people this still seems valuable.

~~~
Spooky23
There’s too much judgement in the standards. If you admit to very moderate
social alcohol consumption, you’ll get tagged as an abuser. Risky move these
days.

~~~
RandomInteger4
While I disagree and think your assessment is a bit hyperbolic, I do see that
there may be some stigma in whether patients admit to their doctor that they
drink. My dad apparently lied to his doctor quite a bit about his junk food
consumption prior to his double bypass. Patients feel guilty about things they
know or think to be unhealthy and for some reason think that lying will help
them in any way. It's weird. Like, why are people more afraid of what some
random person thinks than they are of seriously fucking up their doctor's
ability to treat them?

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godelmachine
We are all told that red wine if consumed in limited amounts every day is very
beneficial for health in the long term. Of late, I heard that this scientific
marketing was also sponsored by the alcohol industry and high chances that
this notion is fake and preposterous.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
There seems to be no safe dose for alcohol.

[https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-it-better-to-drink-
littl...](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-it-better-to-drink-little-
alcohol-than-none-at-all/)

~~~
loeg
The statement is probably true, but the provided source is one you should be
skeptical of. The author is somewhat of a vegan quack.

[https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-
illnes...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-
curable-by-veganism/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Greger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Greger)

~~~
elliotec
Which part of this was quackery?

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sorokod
How about a requirement that all participating researchers provide the
relevant financial disclosures as part of the published research?

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oldgradstudent
Study 329 anyone?

[https://study329.org](https://study329.org)

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AtlasBarfed
Could blockchains help detailed tracking in studies somehow? Maybe tie RFID in
the products into a blockchain tracker. The blockchain could anonymize the
data, but provide quantitative tracking.

I'd also wish for some way to provide funding to studies but obscure the
direct pay. So they pay into a funding that gets anonymously distributed to
coinholders.

Eh, these are all pretty far fetched.

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vfc1
Of course there are, this is pervasive. This has been done for decades by the
tobacco industry, by the meat, dairy and eggs industry and others that try to
buy scientific studies that favor their product.

~~~
jamklda
You lump them all together as if they are the same (tobacco, meat, dairy,
eggs) yet you conveniently left out the Grain farming industry and
Vegetarian/Vegan food industry, these industries buy scientific studies and
food & nutrition organizations too.

~~~
cageface
There's an order of magnitude difference between the marketing and lobbying
budgets of the animal agriculture industry and the others you mentioned. There
is no "big broccoli" funding dodgy nutrition studies.

~~~
jamklda
There is however plenty of "Anti-meat/Meat Causes Cancer" dodgy nutrition
studies pushed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Vegetarian/Vegan
agenda by The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

indeed, an order of magnitude difference.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
Can you post some of your sources please?

~~~
jamklda
Carcinogenicity of Consumption of Red and Processed Meat report by WHO

Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets.

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mnm1
An "industry-funded study" is an oxymoron. That's about as compelling as
sports players also being the referee. All the studies that have shown that
alcohol is not negative to health have been funded by the industry. To
continue my analogy, the player/referee signaled for a touchdown when he
wasn't even on the field. This is all propaganda bullshit pushed by alcohol
companies to sell more shit. And really, anyone who stops to think about such
ideas that a glass of wine a day--in other words a small addiction to alcohol,
the most devastating commonly used drug in the world--could be beneficial, and
doesn't question the validity by using his common sense is a fool who believes
what he wants to believe. To sell addiction to the masses through manipulated
studies is both genius on the part of alcohol companies and something that
should be punished severely, as in disbanding the company. Except that nih and
other federal departments are too dumb/corrupt themselves to not take the
money. In the meantime, millions of people are and have died, gotten cancer,
cirrhosis, and other problems because of their incompetence and willingness to
sell the alcohol companies' take that a little alcohol addiction is not bad.
Of course, for people that trust such government institutions, there is no
hope and their trust, as we can see, has been the downfall of millions. But
that's another issue altogether.

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fisherjeff
I picked up the book _Food Politics_ by Marion Nestle, mentioned in the
article, on a whim several years ago and could not recommend it more highly
for anyone interested in... well, the politics of food.

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fnord123
Ooh, an exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines!

~~~
Swenrekcah
Betteridges ‘law’ is a rule of thumb.

A rule of thumb needs to give you approximately the right answer more than 50%
of the time without spending any effort to examine the particular problem in
order to be useful.

So it really does not need to be pointed out every time this ‘law’ is broken.

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internetman55
My grandpa is into his 80s without many health issues while drinking
occasionally but not everyday or anything. His brothers all loved drinking
more and died earlier in much worse condition. Hence I will just drink smaller
amounts of alcohol and not obsess over such issues

~~~
KozmoNau7
Don't drink every day/regularly, and only drink 2-3 units when you do drink,
seems to be reasonable advice.

~~~
vfc1
There doesn't seem to be a safe lower limit for alcohol, its a well-known very
potent carcinogen.

Its not obsessive at all to completely avoid such a cancer inducing substance,
especially if there is a family history of problems linked to it.

~~~
KozmoNau7
"Very potent carcinogen" is scaremongering and alarmist.

Don't drink if you don't want to, but tone down the retoric a bit.

Generations upon generations of Germans have enjoyed beer in moderation, and
they don't seem to have higher cancer rates than other western countries.

~~~
vfc1
Its not a retoric, its according to the latest science. There is this social
perception that drinking in moderation is ok for human health and even
beneficial, when in reality alchool is a toxic substance with no known safe
usage limit.

Cancer in western countries are in general the highest compared to other
cultures, so having an average rate among the highest in the world is not
saying much.

~~~
KozmoNau7
No. Alcohol is a "known carcinogen", and there seems to be no minimum dose
below which it does not affect cancer risk.

That says _nothing_ about the potency. Just like nitrates and cured meat
products in general. We know that they _do_ affect the risk of contracting
cancer, but the potency is quite low, compared to something like tobacco smoke
or radiation exposure.

A lot of the things people consume everyday are "toxic substances", depending
on the dose. Almonds can kill you, so can apple cores.

Is alcohol to blame for higher rates of cancer in western countries? Probably
not, as people in other parts of the world also consume a lot of alcohol, it's
a human constant and not unique to the western world.

Moderate and responsible consumption of alcohol has extremely minor effects on
physical health, but the social and relaxation benefits are immense. If having
a cold beer after work helps you to de-stress and relax more for the rest of
the day, that's a net positive. I would posit that stress is a lot more
dangerous than occasional consumption of alcohol. I am absolutely not
defending binge drinking and abuse.

There is a lot of modern-day puritanism and outright shaming going on lately,
of everything that is deemed to be "unclean" or "unhealthy". It's not a good
state of mind to be so judgmental of other people.

~~~
vfc1
In the end people can do wathever they want, its their live after all.

There are other ways to reduce stress, like finding remote work or changing
jobs.

The problem is that one beer quickly becomes two, 3 and 4 and there are a lot
of people that just cant control it, its almost never just one beer.

I wish alchool would become like cigarretes: at least everyone knows it causes
cancer, some people still use it and thats up to them.

But with alchool we are not there yet, a lot of people still dont know it
causes cancer and there is no safe usage limit, they even think that it has
some beneficial health properties, everything in moderation.

I wish it would be so socially acceptable not to drink, as it is to drink. In
a lot of places, you are actually socially expected to consume alcohol, still
today, which is insane given what we know about the link between alchool and
cancer.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Don't blame poor self control on the drink/cigarette/junk food, it's a
personal choice to indulge. Obviously if you can't control it, stay away. But
please don't start any legal changes or persecution that affects the large
majority that have absolutely no issues managing their intake.

If you find that the company you keep consider it unacceptable to not drink
alcohol, you really should find other people to hang out with. Seriously,
they're a bad influence.

I'm glad that everyone I hang out with don't give a shit if you drink
alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages, as long as you're a nice person to hang
out with. If there are people whose company you can only stand when one or
both of you are drunk, something's seriously wrong.

