Anti-alcohol lobbyists have accused the Trump administration of burying a new government-funded report that draws a link between drinking and cancer—and warn that Americans will be harmed as a result.
But that's a claim, made in an article published by Vox earlier this month, that leans on several half-truths, as well as an inaccurate characterization of the underlying report and how it came to be. As Reason detailed in a cover story earlier this year, the very existence of that report was the result of a flawed and biased process. It is not that the Trump administration is trying to silence important findings or keep essential health data from the public—rather, the administration seems to be correctly skeptical of this study and its authors' attempt to influence the drafting of the new dietary guidelines set to be published later this year.
Let's begin with the claims of public health malfeasance. In the article by Vox reporter Dylan Scott, the White House is accused of "work[ing] against the best interest of public health" by refusing to publish the final version of the Alcohol Intake and Health Study that was commissioned by the Biden administration in 2022. Keeping the report under wraps will allegedly keep Americans in the dark about the link between drinking and cancer, and "people are going to get sick who might have avoided getting sick, because they might have decreased their drinking," Priscilla Martinez, deputy scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute, tells Scott.
