Trump‑blocked Study Says One Drink Raises Death Risk
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- SAMHSA commissioned the Alcohol Intake and Health Study in 2023 to inform the U.S. dietary guidelines.
- Trump administration withheld the study’s final report, and a House Oversight Committee called it “irretrievably flawed,” recommending the guidelines ignore its conclusions.
- Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs published the suppressed study, omitting any reference to SAMHSA funding.
- Study authors found that consuming about one drink per day raises the risk of death and serious illnesses such as liver cirrhosis, esophageal and oral cancers, and injury‑related deaths, with women also facing higher liver cancer risk.
- Study methodology used meta‑analyses and U.S. survey, injury surveillance, and vital statistics data, excluding former drinkers to avoid bias.
- Robert Vincent, a former SAMHSA associate administrator, said the findings are rigorous and commercially threatening; he lost his job amid agency budget cuts.
Why it matters: The public health community gains data that could reshape U.S. dietary guidelines, while the alcohol industry loses a shield against stricter recommendations; the administration’s suppression undermines scientific independence and hinders evidence‑based guideline adoption, affecting the roughly 178,000 alcohol‑related deaths each year.
