A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

YeGoblynQueenne | 131 points

This article from 2017 appears to be the New York Times reporting (mentioned in the article but not linked directly) that brought down this trial: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/well/eat/alcohol-national...

exhilaration | 6 years ago

>patients are known to be highly inconsistent when reporting their own alcohol consumption. Answers patients provide depend on many factors, including the doctor-patient relationship. And patients’ spouses often disagree with their partners’ assessment of their drinking. The MACH15 trial had some sophistication built in to it, including the use of random smartphone-based check-ins for patients. But while some evidence suggests that smartphone-based self-reporting on alcohol consumption often contradicts patients hindsight reports, MACH15 had no ability to tease out which patients would adhere to the smartphone check-ins, and which were providing accurate accounts of their consumption. In essence, the NIH was making a $100 million gamble that volunteers would portray their alcohol consumption accurately.

This doesn't seem like a problem with the study design to me. You're effectively assessing the effect of telling people to drink "zero" vs "moderate" alcohol as opposed to the the effect of actually drinking those quantities, but since one major use for a study like this is to figure out what doctors should be telling people this still seems valuable.

cbr | 6 years ago

We are all told that red wine if consumed in limited amounts every day is very beneficial for health in the long term. Of late, I heard that this scientific marketing was also sponsored by the alcohol industry and high chances that this notion is fake and preposterous.

godelmachine | 6 years ago

How about a requirement that all participating researchers provide the relevant financial disclosures as part of the published research?

sorokod | 6 years ago

Study 329 anyone?

https://study329.org

oldgradstudent | 6 years ago

Could blockchains help detailed tracking in studies somehow? Maybe tie RFID in the products into a blockchain tracker. The blockchain could anonymize the data, but provide quantitative tracking.

I'd also wish for some way to provide funding to studies but obscure the direct pay. So they pay into a funding that gets anonymously distributed to coinholders.

Eh, these are all pretty far fetched.

AtlasBarfed | 6 years ago

Of course there are, this is pervasive. This has been done for decades by the tobacco industry, by the meat, dairy and eggs industry and others that try to buy scientific studies that favor their product.

vfc1 | 6 years ago

An "industry-funded study" is an oxymoron. That's about as compelling as sports players also being the referee. All the studies that have shown that alcohol is not negative to health have been funded by the industry. To continue my analogy, the player/referee signaled for a touchdown when he wasn't even on the field. This is all propaganda bullshit pushed by alcohol companies to sell more shit. And really, anyone who stops to think about such ideas that a glass of wine a day--in other words a small addiction to alcohol, the most devastating commonly used drug in the world--could be beneficial, and doesn't question the validity by using his common sense is a fool who believes what he wants to believe. To sell addiction to the masses through manipulated studies is both genius on the part of alcohol companies and something that should be punished severely, as in disbanding the company. Except that nih and other federal departments are too dumb/corrupt themselves to not take the money. In the meantime, millions of people are and have died, gotten cancer, cirrhosis, and other problems because of their incompetence and willingness to sell the alcohol companies' take that a little alcohol addiction is not bad. Of course, for people that trust such government institutions, there is no hope and their trust, as we can see, has been the downfall of millions. But that's another issue altogether.

mnm1 | 6 years ago

I picked up the book Food Politics by Marion Nestle, mentioned in the article, on a whim several years ago and could not recommend it more highly for anyone interested in... well, the politics of food.

fisherjeff | 6 years ago

Ooh, an exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines!

fnord123 | 6 years ago

Am I the only one who thinks it's strange that the NIH can receive money directly from a company?

I have trouble believing that will ever go well.

Trump2020MAGA | 6 years ago

My grandpa is into his 80s without many health issues while drinking occasionally but not everyday or anything. His brothers all loved drinking more and died earlier in much worse condition. Hence I will just drink smaller amounts of alcohol and not obsess over such issues

internetman55 | 6 years ago