More than 100 members of Congress call for US to suspend controversial health study on alcohol

More than 100 members of Congress have called for the US government to “suspend” an influential study about the health risks of alcohol – as beer, wine and liquor makers raised concerns that a panel doing the research is staffed by anti-alcohol activists.In a letter this week, US lawmakers including New York Reps.Nicole Malliotakis and Mike Lawler seized on the fact that the study is being conducted by a group called the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking — or ICCPUD.Alcohol executives fear that the study could include tough recommendations against alcohol use as it advises on the US government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are due for a regular five-year update in 2025.

“There would be a ripple effect if the guidelines change and consumers could reduce their consumption of alcohol,” Michael Kaiser, executive director of trade group WineAmerica, told The Post.“People will buy fewer bottles for consumption at home and might wait until they go out on the weekend.”HSS hasn’t publicly commented on its decision to hire ICCPUD for the study, and didn’t respond to The Post’s requests for comment.“HSS has offered no explanation and that’s the heart of the problem,” Kaiser said.

“All signs point to the anti-alcohol movement.”The lawmakers – many of them from beer-, wine- and liquor-producing states including California, Washington and Kentucky – ripped “the secretive process at ICCPUD” and claimed the group’s researchers “were not appropriately vetted for conflicts of interest,” according to the Monday letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack.Among the researchers is Dr.Tim Naimi, who has previously recommended that adult males consume no more than one drink a day — down from the two drinks a day that have been recommended since 1980 by the US government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The DGA recommends one dr...