Abstract
Introduction And AimsThere have been no previous quantitative analyses of the possible effects of industry funding on alcohol and health research. This study examines whether findings of alcohol's protective effects on cardiovascular disease may be biased by industry funding.Design and MethodsFindings from a recent systematic review of prospective cohort studies were combined with public domain data on alcohol industry funding. The six outcomes evaluated were alcohol's effects on cardiovascular disease mortality, incident coronary heart disease, coronary heart disease mortality, incident stroke, stroke mortality and mortality from all causes.ResultsWe find no evidence of possible funding effects for outcomes other than stroke. Whether studies find alcohol to be a risk factor or protective against incident stroke depends on whether or not there is possible industry funding [risk ratio (RR) 1.07 (0.97–1.17) for those without concern about industry funding compared with RR 0.88 (0.81–0.94)]. For stroke mortality, a similar difference is not statistically significant, most likely because there are too few studies.Discussion and ConclusionsDedicated high-quality studies of possible alcohol industry funding effects should be undertaken, and these should be broad in scope. They also need to investigate specific areas of concern, such as stroke, in greater depth. [McCambridge J, Hartwell G. Has industry funding biased studies of the protective effects of alcohol on cardiovascular disease? A preliminary investigation of prospective cohort studies. Drug Alcohol Rev 2015;34:58–66]
Highlights
Introduction And AimsThere have been no previous quantitative analyses of the possible effects of industry funding on alcohol and health research.This study examines whether findings of alcohol’s protective effects on cardiovascular disease may be biased by industry funding
Our approach to possible industry funding was not restricted to individual papers or to individual authors; we took any evidence of industry funding for any purpose at any time by any author and university receipt of any alcohol industry funding for health research at any time to indicate some level of concern
Alcohol consumption is found to be protective against stroke incidence in the group of eight studies where there is concern about industry funding, whereas it is found to be a risk factor in the group of 10 studies where concern about industry funding is absent, with little heterogeneity within the two groups; see Figure 5
Summary
There have been no previous quantitative analyses of the possible effects of industry funding on alcohol and health research.This study examines whether findings of alcohol’s protective effects on cardiovascular disease may be biased by industry funding. In addition to the well-known problems implicit in making causal inferences on the basis of observational data, beyond cardiovascular disease many of the claimed health benefits have no plausible biological mechanisms nor obvious relationships to each other [3]. This is all the more curious as reliable exposure measurement of patterns of drinking over time is complex, and may be weak in many of the primary studies [4]. A recurrent finding in meta-analytic studies of alcohol’s protective effects on cardiovascular disease is the striking levels of unexplained heterogeneity between studies [5,6]
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