Big Alcohol Buys Biased Study to Prove Alcohol’s Health Benefits

Alcohol companies agreed to fund the MACH trial to advance their commercial interests rather than to help answer a major scientific question. Alcohol industry executives seized opportunities presented by discussions of the MACH trial to try to influence this study and wider public health, research, and policy decision-making.
The process of soliciting research funding from corporations, which included convincing alcohol companies that the study design supported their commercial interests, was intrinsically biased. Thus, the three parties – research funding officials, researchers, and industry executives – coproduced the biased trial design…