Beer Marketer's Insights - Dietary Guidelines Drop Specific Drinking Advice as Oversight Committee Rips "Fraught," Failed ICCPUD Effort

For the first time in decades, the US government does not offer specific guidance to American adults about how much to drink. Yesterday, the Trump Administration released its long-awaited update to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). It follows close to two years of heightened industry concern that the DGA could embrace a far harsher stance. But the new document says next to nothing about alcohol, save to "consume less." Those fears stemmed from what appeared to be an effort by anti-industry advocates to leverage connections at the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD) to influence the guidelines. Sure enough, in the hours before the DGA's release, a report from the House Oversight Committee confirmed those suspicions. Yet with that particular crisis averted, sympathetic press outlets still took the opportunity to rope questions about alcohol into broader critiques of the new DGA, often following advocates' finger-pointing at industry influence.Broad Sentiment of Guidelines Unchanged, Though Specifics Removed Health Secretary RFK Jr may have framed the 2025-2030 edition of the DGA as "the most significant reset of federal nutritional policy in history," but its basic stance on alcohol is broadly unchanged. The brief, 10-page version of the document says very little on the topic, urging Americans to "consume less alcohol for better overall health" under the headline to "Limit Alcoholic Beverages." It continues to remind that certain folks "should completely avoid alcohol," like those who are pregnant, recovering from a use disorder or with other medical conditions. Confusingly, it does not include individuals under 21 on that list.Previous editions of the DGA also encouraged adults to drink less. But specific targets &mdash; that women consume no more than 1 drink per day and men no more than 2 &mdash; often overshadowed that general guidance. The removal of those specific recommendations opens a void that could be filled in any number of ways. Given statutory barriers to discussing health, industry members are unlikely to be the ones to do it, though. Indeed, prior daily drinking guidelines offered industry advocates a tool, an easy shorthand for "moderation" with a handy citation to a government document. The more amorphous updated guidance may prove more slippery to utilize in the same way.Advocates Proposed ICCPUD Study to Follow "Canadian Model" Meanwhile, the controversial Alcohol Intake & Health (AIH) study taken up by ICCPUD was exactly as it appeared and as industry members feared: a strategic effort by some of the industry's biggest critics to tilt the DGA toward the WHO's "no safe level" stance on alcohol. So determined the Republican majority staffers at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in yesterday's report, titled "A Study Fraught with Bias."Documentation for that determination came in the form of ICCPUD meeting notes from 2023 and 2024, showing the study's origins. Later, folks associated with the study tried to hide the work from Freedom of Information Act requests, the report shows, critiquing their "deceptive practices." In sum, it doubles down on earlier Congressional action to sideline the results of the ICCPUD effort and insist that any US nutrition guidance be based on the more moderate findings of a separate report from the National Academies (NASEM).Industry Welcomes Embrace of "Moderation" Amid Quiet Win; Silent Differences? The report's derision of the ICCPUD gambit and its failure to impact this edition of the DGA is an unequivocal win for industry advocates, who joined together to urge "Science Over Bias" in response, recall. But instead of sticking the knife in yesterday, the coalition merely commented on the "the Dietary Guidelines' longstanding, overarching advice" in favor of "moderation. These updated guidelines, underpinned by the preponderance of scientific evidence, reaffirm this important guidance."All along, the group favored the more moderate NASEM report that generally aligned with prior guidance, while also acknowledging the increased risk of breast cancer associated with moderate drinking. It's worth noting that supporting documents for the new edition of the DGA confirm that authors did not consider "findings" from both alcohol-focused reports and that "guidance on alcoholic beverages and health in this report was informed by a study conducted by the National Academies."The large industry coalition represented some of the most unified work of US alcohol stakeholders in memory, where trade groups set aside decades-old differences. But those differences linger in the background, especially as the glaring absence of specific drink-per-day guidance shines in the foreground. That's because the DGA's longtime embrace of specific recommendations mirrored advocacy led by distillers that equivalizes the alcohol content of different beverage types. The document didn't use the "standard drink" terminology preferred by distillers and dismissed by brewers, but definitions closely tracked the view. Opinions of removing the 1-2 drink guidance likely vary.Dr. Oz Embraces Sociability, But Plays Both Sides During a White House press conference where the administration released the new edition of the DGA, health advisor and celebrity doc Dr Mehmet Oz insisted that "there was never really good data to support that quantity of alcohol consumption," anyway. He was responding to the first open question of the morning, which asked about "the science" behind dropping the 1-2 drink recommendation. He closed by seemingly echoing the views of public health advocates who suggest findings that support moderate drinking are driven by other lifestyle factors.In Dr Oz's view, the confusion stems from "data about social connectedness." Indeed, he started his answer by saying that "alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together." He cited so-called "Blue Zones," where folks tend to live longer, healthier lives and where "alcohol is sometimes a part of their diet," often "in small amounts" and in concert with some celebration. "The implication" of the guidance in the new edition of the DGA "is 'don't have it for breakfast,'" he quipped. While he did say that "in the best case scenario, I don't think you should drink alcohol," he acknowledged that "it does allow people an excuse to bond and socialize. And there's probably nothing healthier than having a good time with friends in a safe way."Anti-Industry Advocates Play Blame Game, Picked Up by Times, Reuters, More Convincing Americans to "drink less" (or not at all) is precisely the aim of most alcohol-focused public health advocates. Yet, instead of spinning the removal of the per-day drinking recommendations (which they view as too high) as a win, those folks continue to blame industry advocacy for yesterday's DGA outcome. "HHS Hands a Win to Big Alcohol," the US Alcohol Policy Alliance headlined its press release. The group bemoaned the removal of language noting the association between alcohol and certain cancers and insisted that "scientific consensus shows there is no healthy level of alcohol consumption."Recall, seeing the writing on the wall late last year, USAPA sought to fill the void left by the new DGA before it was even published, releasing its own set of guidelines reiterating the WHO-backed "no safe level" rhetoric. The org's CEO, Mike Marshall, reiterated the points to the NY Times, claiming that "the thing the industry fears most are consumers educated about the link between cancer and alcohol." While the Times does point to that connection and the year-old advisory issued by former Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy, it does not acknowledge data in the report showing that the vast majority of alcohol-related cancer is caused by heavy drinking well beyond former US drinking guidelines.Following Dr Oz's comments, various other media outlets have included questions about the loss of specific daily drinking guidelines in their reporting about the new DGA. But alcohol is often left to the end. To be clear, concerns about and critiques of the new DGA tend to focus on other issues, particularly its shifting commentary about saturated fats. But it's puzzling to some. The document "offers a jumble of some good and some bad advice that we worry will confuse consumers," according to a statement from the National Consumers League. Yet the change to alcohol guidance falls on the "bad" side, in the org's view, worried that drinkers "will now be flying blind when attempting to make responsible drinking decisions." Still, that's the org's closing comment, not its opener.After citing USAPA in a brief article yesterday, Reuters followed up in a deeper-dive today claiming that "The Trump Administration killed a draft proposal to halve alcohol limits." The article never specifically links that proposal to the failed ICCPUD effort, though it does note the "dueling alcohol studies." Reuters emphasizes industry lobbying, including for the Congressional appropriation of $1.3 mil for the NASEM study. The HHS officials who had been working on text for the DGA sought to follow the abandoned recommendation from the last edition, recommending both women and men consume no more than 1 drink per day, according to Reuters. But many of those folks were among the thousands of HHS employees laid off or fired when RFK Jr took the reins.ICCPUD Effort Tied to Anti-Alcohol Advocates from Outset Alongside USAPA's Marshall, the Times cites 2 of the 6 scientists who authored ICCPUD's AIH study, Dr Katherine Keyes and Dr Priscilla Martinez (who appeared alongside Marshall in USAPA's own virtual press conference yesterday). Yet the paper did not mention the House Oversight Committee report heavily critiquing their output as "fraught," "irretrievably flawed" and tainted by "bias." Nor does it acknowledge the report's emphasis on links between the USAPA and those working on the AIH, as we identified back in May of 2024.It all started with key ICCPUD contractor and former USAPA chair Dr Alicia Sparks, the House committee report explains. In early 2023, she was "drafting a proposed approach to conducting the dietary guidelines research" on alcohol using a methodology that "largely follows the Canadian model," notes from a January 9 ICCPUD meeting show. That's a reference to the process established by the Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction, which led to widespread confusion that its recommendations to consume no more than 2 drinks per week was the country's federally-endorsed guidance. Notably, meeting attendees at ICCPUD also thought the Canadian effort "may again be useful" as a model for its communications strategy, the notes reveal.By the next month, "Alicia compiled a list" of researchers to embark on the study, which would once again be "similar to the Canadian model," meeting notes show. Unsurprisingly, the AIH panel ended up including 2 of the authors of the Canadian report, Dr Kevin Shield and Dr Tim Naimi, plus a third Canadian whose work the report cited 20 times, Dr J&uuml;rgen Rehm. Those scientists also have ties to the WHO and its "no safe amount" stance, the House committee report explains. Indeed, all 6 of the panelists are "anti-alcohol advocates with beliefs predating the study that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe."In March, the group had determined that "ICCPUD will do a review of alcohol attributable deaths, following the Canadian approach" simultaneous to NASEM's work. That sounds pretty definitive. Yet by September, meeting notes include a "reminder" to add headers or footers to "all AI&H documents" that claim they are "deliberative" or "pre-decisional." At an April 22, 2024 meeting, notes show discussion about adding such a designation "to all materials, not just AIH, to prevent the materials from falling under FOIA." That looks like folks at ICCPUD "were intentionally hiding information," the House committee wrote."Duplicative" and "Wasteful," But By How Much? The House committee report heavily emphasizes points made by industry members, including claims that the work was "duplicative" of the NASEM effort. Unsurprisingly for this particular group of lawmakers and their staff, the report frames such double-work as "wasteful." However, it doesn't pinpoint how much taxpayer money was wasted or where that money came from. Early ICCPUD meeting notes suggest the group at least initially operated under the assumption that it would not get additional "resources" to pursue the AIH study. But that's never quite cleared up, leaving open questions about the ultimate cost of the project. With the new edition of the DGA finally out in the world, this saga may finally be over. At least until prep for the next edition begins.Cheers,

Dietary Guidelines Drop Specific Drinking Advice as Oversight Committee Rips "Fraught," Failed ICCPUD Effort

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