NIH pulls funding from compromised alcohol/CV health trial

NIH said it will stop funding the Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health (MACH) study after concluding that NIH employees violated agency policies to secure its funding and potentially biased its design towards the alcohol industry.

Led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the worldwide MACH clinical trial was to evaluate the effect of one serving of alcohol (15 grams) daily versus no alcohol intake on the rate of new cases of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in about 7,800 participants aged 50 years and older with CV risk. It received a funding commitment of $20 million over 10 years from NIH's National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) plus $67.7 million in private donations raised by the Foundation for NIH (FNIH). ...