A government-commissioned study found drinking risks. US guidelines
didn't feature its findings
[June 10, 2026]
By LAURA UNGAR and ALI SWENSON
A study commissioned by President Joe Biden's administration to
investigate alcohol-related health harms was released independently on
Tuesday, after President Donald Trump's administration decided not to
feature the researchers' findings in new dietary guidelines as it faced
pushback from the alcohol industry and a congressional committee.
The findings of the study, in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and
Drugs, were in line with years of research, saying that health risks go
up with just one drink a day and no level of alcohol has a protective
effect on mortality. Even levels considered “moderate” raise the risk of
premature death and more than 200 diseases, including heart disease and
cancer, researchers found.
The new study was one of two government reviews meant to help inform the
new dietary guidelines. Released earlier this year, the guidelines
advised consuming “less alcohol for better overall health.” The authors
of the independently released study say that didn’t provide detailed
practical advice about the risks of drinking.
One of the officials involved in the study commissioned by Biden's
Democratic administration accused Trump's Republican administration of
“sidelining” the research — an allegation the Trump administration
denies.
Robert Vincent, a former Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration alcohol policy official who led the yearslong effort,
made the accusations in an editorial published alongside the study.
Vincent was laid off last year as part of a government reduction in
force.
“The challenges confronting alcohol policy today are not rooted in
scientific uncertainty,” Vincent wrote. “What remains contested is
whether evidence will meaningfully inform policy when it conflicts with
commercial interests.”
he dispute over the study underscored the increasingly tense relations
between the medical and scientific community and the Trump
administration, which has questioned or ignored longstanding science in
its policymaking, fired a slew of veteran scientists from the federal
workforce and cut scientific grants that proponents say help keep the
U.S. at the forefront of medical innovation.
Industry and congressional Republicans pushed back on the study
After the study's researchers released a draft report last year, the
alcohol industry mobilized against it, launching campaigns to discredit
its work. The House oversight committee also criticized the study,
releasing a report earlier this year that called it “fraught with bias”
and accused the study authors of having predetermined conclusions based
on their past research and affiliations.
Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, denied any notion that the findings weren't considered.
HHS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture "reviewed the study alongside
the broader body of available scientific evidence and followed the
established process for developing the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for
Americans,” she said. “The Guidelines are informed by the totality of
the scientific record, not any single report or analysis.”
Vincent told The Associated Press in an interview that the researchers
were thoroughly vetted for conflicts and the findings were
scientifically sound. He said that while he was in the Trump
administration, he was “asked to kill the study” but did not. HHS didn’t
immediately respond to that claim. The department said the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration wasn't involved in the
review or the clearance of the study published Tuesday, which evolved
from the draft version with additional authors, analysis and policy
recommendations.
Amanda Berger, senior vice president of science and research for the
alcohol trade association the Distilled Spirits Council of the United
States, said in an email to the AP that the congressional committee's
findings showed the study was “irretrievably flawed."
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Various wines are displayed in Sonoma, Calif., July 10, 2017. (AP
Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
 Findings support more forceful
alcohol intake recommendation
The Trump administration earlier this year released new dietary
guidelines that advised consuming “less alcohol for better overall
health.” The researchers said that they don't dispute that advice
but that their findings support a more detailed and forceful
recommendation that current adult drinkers consume one drink or
fewer a day.
“I’m glad that they had a message that corresponds with our science,
and that is that less is best,” said Dr. Timothy Naimi, director of
the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use
Research and one of the study’s authors. “But giving people quantity
information is necessary to make a truly informative guideline.”
The study differed from the other research commissioned by the
government to help inform the dietary guidelines on the issue, which
said moderate alcohol use was associated with a decreased risk of
mortality from all causes but also an increased risk of some
diseases.
Priscilla Martinez-Matyszczyk, one of the authors of the new study
and a deputy scientific director at the Public Health Institute’s
Alcohol Research Group, said their study didn’t look at mortality
from all causes but instead examined mortality specifically
attributed to alcohol to avoid confounding factors.
Martinez-Matyszczyk also addressed an issue raised by Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz in his
explanations of the new guidelines: that drinking is “a social
lubricant that brings people together” and that even though not
drinking is preferred, being social has health benefits.
“I don’t know of any studies that have teased out the social effect
from the health effect,” she said.
Research aligns with other recent findings
The new findings are “in line with the latest science that basically
shows less is better when it comes to health,” Naimi said.
For example, a 2019 study in Lancet found that moderate drinking
slightly raised the risk of stroke and high blood pressure and
offered no protective effects on health.
Moderate drinking was once thought to have benefits for the heart,
but better research methods have thrown cold water on that idea.
Older studies compared groups of people by how much they drink
instead of randomly assigning people to drink or not, so they
couldn’t prove cause and effect. When researchers adjusted for
things like education levels, income and health care access, the
benefits tended to disappear.
About half of Americans age 12 or older had a drink in the past
month, researchers said, making it the most commonly used addictive
substance in the U.S. One drink is the equivalent of about one
12-ounce can of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a shot of liquor.
___
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