Congressional Investigation Needed into Scientific and Ethical Corruption at NIAAA

I used to think of the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) as a highly-reputed, objective, science-based agency whose primary goal was to reduce alcohol consumption to improve the public ’s health. The scientific integrity of the NIAAA is critical, as itdescribes itself as “the largest funder of alcohol research in the world.” The agency is funded by taxpayers to the tune of$480 million a year.But then one day, all of that changed. On January 16, 2015, I was called into the office of the Director of NIAAA and was essentially reprimanded for conducting NIAAA-funded research that was detrimental to the alcohol industry. My NIAAA grant was focused on studying alcohol marketing and its possible link to underage youth drinking behavior. Weidentifiedthe brands of alcohol that underage youth are consuming and found that their brand choices wererelatedto their brand-specific advertising exposure. At the meeting, I was told that I would never again be funded to conduct research on alcohol marketing, regardless of how highly my research proposal was scored by the scientific review panel.I later found out that the NIAAA director had extensive contact with the alcohol industry and that hepromisedthe Distilled Spirits Council that this type of research would never be funded again: “For the record. This will NOT happen again. … I will NOT be funding this type of work under my tenure.”Not only had the NIAAA director privately told an alcohol lobbying grou...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs