NIH Shuts Down Controversial Alcohol Study

We recently reported that the world’s world’s largest brewer, AB InBev, had ended its funding of a controversial $100 million 10-year study, being conducted by the National Institutes of Health, examining the health impact of moderate drinking. And now NIH has pulled the plug on the scandal-plagued program.

Here’s the deal…

Basically things became tainted once it was revealed that five leading alcohol producers including Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Heineken, Carlsberg and AB InBev, had been actively courted by NIH representatives at industry events and pricy luncheons with hints that the findings might be beneficial their businesses.

No doubt encouraged by the possibility of receiving some good news about moderate drinking, those five companies ended up donating around $66 million to the study according the New York Times whose expose led to the NIH putting the study on hold while they examined whether NIH officials had acted inappropriately.

And now, not surprisingly, the NIH has announced that they are putting an end to the Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health (MACH) trial.

The move was taken following an advisory committee found “significant process irregularities” in the attraction of funding” and that a small number of National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism representatives had violated NIH policy by “soliciting gift funding.”

The MACH study had hoped to enroll 7,800 participants aged over 50 from across the world and who were all at high risk of heart disease and monitor them for an average period of six years.

According to the Drinks Business half of that group was “to abstain from alcohol while the other half would have a single serving of alcohol every day.”

But now everybody gets to drink as much as they want (or not) because the NIH announced on Friday that had terminated the US$100 million study.