Comer Releases New Report on Biden Administration’s Biased Alcohol Intake Study that Undermined American Dietary Guidelines

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today released a staff report titled “A Study Fraught with Bias: How the Biden Administration’s Alcohol Intake and Health Study Tried to Undermine the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” The report analyzes an alcohol intake and health study (AIH) conducted by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD), under the direction of the Biden Administration, to examine the relationship between alcohol consumption and negative health outcomes and influence the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines, despite Congress’s prior authorization of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to study this relationship and inform the guidelines. Due to this duplicative effort, the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation in April 2024 into the Biden Administration’s ICCPUD AIH study and uncovered evidence that it was conducted in a manner inconsistent with federal law, wasted taxpayer dollars, and raised outcome bias concerns.

“The Biden Administration violated federal law and ignored Congress in order to push an agenda on the American people. After the House Oversight Committee uncovered evidence that the Biden Administration wasted taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary and duplicative study, the administration wasted no time obstructing the Committee’s requests and hiding evidence of the study’s obvious bias. Americans deserve transparency and accuracy from the government when it determines federal dietary guidelines. The House Oversight Committee remains committed to providing answers, rejecting biased studies, and giving Americans confidence in the scientific support underlying the Dietary Guidelines,” said Chairman Comer.

Based on the report’s findings, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform concludes that the Biden Administration’s ICCPUD AIH study is inconsistent with federal law and determines that those who wish to look into the federal government for dietary guidance would be best served if the ICCPUD AIH study is left in its interim draft form and not be considered in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines.

Below are key findings from the report:

• After nearly two years of document requests and a duly issued congressional subpoena, the Biden Administration failed to provide the requested information for the Committee’s investigation: The Biden Administration obstructed the Committee’s request for information and sought to evade the Committee’s oversight efforts by limiting production to documents already publicly available. 
• All six members of the Scientific Review Panel chosen to conduct the ICCPUD AIH study are affiliated with U.S. and international anti-alcohol advocacy groups: After reviewing the internal documents and communications from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the AIH study group appears to have had a pre-determined goal—to publish a biased study that concluded under a “Canadian model” that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe by recruiting scientists who would develop the research that supported that conclusion. All three Canadian members of the ICCPUD research group were affiliated with creating the “Canadian model” study.
• ICCPUD hid information about the AIH study’s bias and predetermined goal from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requestors and Congress by classifying documents as “pre-decisional and deliberative,” with no apparent regard for whether that was true: Not only were the actions of the ICCPUD AIH study group likely unethical, they were also contrary to federal law, since the FY 2026 Appropriations Act established that NASEM would be the only entity conducting an alcohol study to inform the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines.
• Congress had already allocated $1.3 million for NASEM to study the relationship between alcohol consumption and negative health outcomes such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease to inform the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines: Congress reaffirmed in the FY 2026 continuing resolutions that the NASEM study should be the only alcohol-related study used to inform the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines. Moreover, the same appropriations legislation allocating those funds and the National Nutrition Monitoring Act require the Dietary Guidelines to be “based on the preponderance of the scientific and medical knowledge which is current at the time the report is prepared” and specify that the HHS and USDA Secretaries, not a subagency, must approve of any guidance, including studies or other information consulted, if it will be considered in the Dietary Guidelines process.

Read the report here.