The Trump administration is under fire for discounting a years-long alcohol consumption study that they allege was biased.
The study, convened by the Biden administration in 2022, found that adults should limit their alcohol consumption to one drink a day max.
“No protective effect of drinking was observed even at low levels, and a lifetime risk of 1 alcohol-attributable death per 1,000 people occurred at roughly 7 drinks per week for both males and females, with risks rising sharply beyond this level,” the study stated, according to The Hill.
Critics have accused the Trump administration of purposefully burying this study:
The Biden administration commissioned a study on alcohol.
The findings were clear: no safe level of consumption exists.
The Trump administration buried it.
The study lead was laid off in 2025.
It finally published this month. pic.twitter.com/j1wc1taMDe
— Warren English (@TheWarEnglish) June 10, 2026
The study’s findings contradicted the latest Dietary Guidelines for America (DGA), which advised only that drinkers should “consume less alcohol for better overall health.” It also contradicts the previous DGA, which said that men may consume up to two alcoholic drinks daily.
In a statement, the researchers behind the study argued that the results “support changing the U.S. Dietary Guidelines on alcohol to recommend that current adult drinkers consume 1 drink or less in a day.”
The Hill notes that this guidance runs parallel to what the World Health Organization advised in 2023, when it said that there’s “no safe amount” of alcohol for men and women to be drinking.
In a statement, Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson Emily Hilliard maintained that the study was neither shelved nor buried.
“Any characterization that the study was ‘shelved’ is inaccurate,” she said. “HHS and USDA 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. The Guidelines are informed by the totality of the scientific record, not any single report or analysis.”
Meanwhile, representatives from the alcohol industry have outright slammed the study, calling it biased nonsense.
“This study was the subject of a Congressional investigation that found it was the product of a flawed, opaque, and biased process, with researchers pursuing a predetermined outcome rooted in personal ideologies rather than objective science,” Amanda Berger of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said.
She wasn’t wrong about the congressional investigation.
The House Oversight Committee published a report in January that said that the alcohol intake and health study (AIH) conducted by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD) was deeply, deeply flawed.
I have deep concerns that the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking is forcing biased research into the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans that implies alcohol consumption is not safe for adults. @RepThompson and I have sent a letter to HHS… pic.twitter.com/LY2IZSptLT
— Rep. Dan Newhouse (@RepNewhouse) February 18, 2025
“Based on our review, HHS documents provided to the Committee show that the ICCPUD AIH study was deliberately biased by 1) recruiting anti-alcohol advocates who wanted to promote that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe by building upon previous research in their 2023 ‘Canadian model’ study and 2) hiding relevant AIH study information from FOIA requestors and Congress,” the report reads.
These facts haven’t stopped people like Robert Vincent, a former Biden administration official, from accusing the current administration of “sidelining” the report.
In an op-ed published after he was laid off by the Trump administration, Vincent also kvetched about being fired.
“I never expected that doing my job—carefully, transparently, and in accordance with federal law—would end my federal service,” he wrote in Scott Pelley fashion. “Yet that is precisely what happened.”
“After nearly four decades as a public servant, I was separated from federal employment as part of a targeted reduction in force that dismantled much of the federal infrastructure for alcohol prevention and treatment policy,” he added.
Despite the personal grievances, he claimed the op-ed wasn’t about grievance but science.
“This editorial is not about personal grievance,” he wrote. “It is about what happens when evidence-based public health work collides with commercial influence—and what it means when that influence reaches inside government itself.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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