ISFAR Criticizes New Alcohol Guidance Issued by Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction But Fails to Reveal Its Conflicts of Interest with Big Alcohol

Earlier this year, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction released anew guidance on alcohol use. The guidance was notable for concluding that there is a dose-response relationship between the amount of alcohol one consumes and one ' s risk of disease or injury and therefore, greater amounts of alcohol consumption are associated with poorer health outcomes. In particular, the guidance concluded that drinking no alcohol is safer than drinking a low or moderate amount of alcohol.The International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research (ISFAR) has just published a stingingcritique of the new guidance. The critique essentially trashes the guidance and accuses the authors of severe bias. For example, in the critique, Forum member R. Curtis Ellison stated: “I am appalled by the conclusions of the authors of this paper.  They present a pseudo-scientific amalgamation of selected studies of low scientific validity that fit their preconceived notions and ignore many high-quality studies whose results may not support their own views ”. The Rest of the StoryThe truth is that it is ISFAR that is severely biased, not the authors of the new guidance. But much worse than that, ISFAR is plagued by severe financial conflicts of interest with Big Alcohol. And even worse than that, ISFAR fails to disclose these severe conflicts of interest in its critique. They are therefore not apparent to readers or reporters, unless they go digging through the " fine print " on the webs...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs