The group\u2019s final study was not released<\/a> by the Trump administration. A House Oversight Committee report in January called it \u201cirretrievably flawed\u201d and recommended dietary guideline authors ignore its conclusions. Some authors of the study, who work outside the U.S. government, say their findings were politicized and suppressed because they are unfavorable to powerful special interests, including the beer, wine, and liquor lobbies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scorned by Trump officials, researchers took their review to the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, which published it<\/a> \u2014 without reference to SAMHSA funding. Among the findings is that even low levels of consumption, or about one drink per day, raises Americans\u2019 chances of dying or becoming seriously ill.<\/p>\n \u201cThese findings are not radical. They are rigorous \u2014 and commercially threatening,\u201d Robert Vincent, who helped oversee the study as a former associate administrator for alcohol prevention and treatment policy at SAMHSA, wrote in an accompanying editorial<\/a>.\u00a0Vincent lost his job last year as part of sweeping cuts across federal health agencies. <\/p>\n After this article was published, the Department of Health and Human Services said the study published Tuesday was different from the one conducted by the government, and \u201cNOT commissioned by, NOR reviewed, approved, or cleared by SAMHSA.\u201d<\/p>\n While it\u2019s true that SAMHSA did not approve the study published this week \u2014 the paper underwent independent peer-review \u2014 the agency oversaw the scientific review between 2023 and 2025. All of that work, which went into the draft report and later formed the basis of this latest paper, was funded by taxpayers and run by HHS, Vincent told STAT.<\/p>\n There are key differences between the reports, said William Maloney, a spokesperson for HHS. Those include additional authors beyond those on the scientific panel, explicit policy recommendations, changes to the analysis, and a downplaying of protective effects for certain outcomes, he said.<\/p>\n Federal officials reviewed a draft version of the report \u201calongside the broader body of available scientific evidence\u201d when updating the nation\u2019s dietary advice, HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard told STAT.<\/p>\n New guidelines \u2014 and a flipped pyramid<\/a>\u2014 were unveiled in January and surprised some by dropping decades-old messaging on alcohol. Instead of telling Americans to stick to one or two drinks per day, they advised Americans simply to \u201cconsume less alcohol for better overall health.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe guidelines are informed by the totality of the scientific record, not any single report or analysis,\u201d Hilliard told STAT. A scientific appendix published alongside the dietary guidelines, however, noted that officials relied on a different study, not the SAMHSA-led report, as the basis for their alcohol recommendation. <\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\t\t Historically, suggested drinking limits for men have been double that of women due to biological differences in how quickly the body processes alcohol. <\/p>\n However, available scientific evidence supports a gender-neutral recommendation in order to reduce men\u2019s risks, the SAMHSA report found: no more than one alcoholic beverage per day for adults who drink. Another panel shaping the dietary guidelines arrived at the same conclusion<\/a> in 2020, but the proposal was not adopted.<\/p>\n Science on alcohol\u2019s health effects is particularly resonant at a time when Americans are drinking less and thinking more about their health, but when alcohol-related harms remain at high levels<\/a>. Alcohol contributes to an estimated 178,000 deaths each year in this country. Drinking, especially heavy use, has been associated with a panoply of ailments and increased risk of death.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the science is mixed on how small amounts of alcohol impact health. Just last week, a large review<\/a> in the journal Nature Health found evidence that low-to-moderate drinking was tied to a reduced risk of some cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and dementias. On the other hand, even very low levels of drinking were associated with increased cancer risk, the study found. \u201cCurrent evidence does not support sex-specific thresholds\u201d for federal alcohol guidance, the authors wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump officials\u2019 decision to withhold<\/a> a taxpayer-funded alcohol report has implications for public health, but it also raises fresh questions about scientific independence under the administration. Officials have already clawed back or threatened research funding on topics they consider illegitimate, such as gender diversity and racial inequality. Most recently, the administration proposed changing the way scientific grants are awarded<\/a> so political appointees retain tighter control of research conducted with federal funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe public health consequences of sidelining evidence-based alcohol policy are immediate and cumulative,\u201d Vincent wrote in his editorial.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the end, Trump officials relied on a study of alcohol led by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine at the request of Congress. That review by 14 outside researchers found mid-grade evidence that moderate drinking was associated with lower all-cause mortality<\/a>. The group\u2019s analysis was not specific to causes of death driven by alcohol. The review also found moderate drinking increased the risk of breast cancer. (The NASEM panel was criticized<\/a> by watchdogs and outside researchers for including people with financial ties to the beverage alcohol industry.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The SAMHSA panel, in contrast, found there was no net health benefit from alcohol, and that even moderate amounts carry risk. One drink per day is associated with \u201celevated risks of death from liver cirrhosis, esophageal and oral cancers, and injury-related deaths. Among females, these risks extend to liver cancer,\u201d the paper says.<\/p>\n Researchers used meta-analyses and data modeling to estimate alcohol-specific risks for various diseases and injuries, and then compared those hazards to risks in people who never drank. (Former drinkers were left out in order to control for a potential bias in those who stopped drinking after becoming ill.) The study focused on U.S. data that were representative of the national population, including from surveys, injury surveillance systems, and vital statistics repositories.<\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\t\t While the lifetime risk of death from one drink per day is about 1 in 1,000, it climbs with consumption. At 14 drinks per week, men face a 1-in-25 chance of dying due to alcohol over the course of their life, data suggest. Women\u2019s risks increase sharply the more they drink: At two drinks per day, women\u2019s relative risk of dying from severe liver disease was more than twice that of men who drank the same amount, the analysis found.\u00a0<\/p>\n Small protective effects researchers observed at up to three drinks per week were not statistically significant. They did, however, find a lowered risk of diabetes in women who drank up to one alcoholic beverage per day \u2014 a finding echoed in some other research \u2014 but said risks were \u201cnot evenly distributed across individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n Binge drinking, which is defined as five or more drinks in one sitting for men, or four or more for women, raises the risk of heart attack, heart disease, stroke, and injury, the review found.<\/p>\n This article was updated on Tuesday afternoon with further comment from HHS. <\/p>\n STAT\u2019s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies<\/a>. Our financial supporters<\/a> are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A report on alcohol\u2019s health effects, commissioned by the federal government but unreleased under President Trump,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":856061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[1556,210,42229,80,881,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-856060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-addiction","tag-health","tag-hhs","tag-politics","tag-public-health","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116722502721820838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AdobeStock_310387214-768x432.jpeg\")
\t\t<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/home\/statplus.svg\")
\n\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: Major report that tied moderate drinking to disease won\u2019t be released, researchers say<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STAT-Alchhol-58-768x432.jpg\")
\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: Alcohol is wreaking havoc on U.S. public health. American society looks the other way<\/a><\/p>\n