NIAAA Promotes Alcohol Industry Public Relations Program; Violates Ethical Standards by Appearing in Anheuser-Busch Promotional Video

In what I believe is a clear ethics code violation, senior employees of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) have appeared in an Anheuser-Busch InBev promotional video that is designed primarily to serve the company ' s public relations interests.The video was brought to light in anarticle by Miriam Shuchman atWired which was published last Thursday.In thevideo, Anheuser-Busch InBev boasts to the public about its " Smart Drinking Goals " program, which is purportedly designed to reduce " hazardous " drinking. Several Anheuser-Busch executives-- including its CEO, Chief " Health " Officer, and Chief Legal and Financial Officer--appear in the video, boasting about how wonderful this program is and implying how great a company Anheuser-Busch is for funding this program and how much it cares about the public ' s health.But the Anheuser-Busch executives aren ' t the only ones who appear in this promotional, public relations video.Shockingly, this Anheuser-Busch PR effort (i.e., public relations effort) is also endorsed and promoted by senior officials of the Executive Branch of the United States government. And even worse, those senior officials are the Director and the Director of Global Alcohol Research of the NIAAA!The Director of Global Alcohol Research at NIAAA provides a glowing endorsement of the program, describing it as " wonderful " (see 0:27-0:34 in the video). The Director of NIAAA also endorses the program, asserting that it will " go far in ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs