THE ALCOHOL INDUSTRY HAS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN ALCOHOL RESEARCH AND POLICY

Abstract

Sir—Can you imagine a situation where representatives of the tobacco industry are given a place at the table in deciding national policies on tobacco control, or in determining the research priorities for officially sponsored research on tobacco-related problems? This probably seems a little far-fetched in a policy environment such as the United Kingdom, where tobacco control measures include massively increasing tax on tobacco, and the government is considering a ban on tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. This would also be unthinkable for an industry which has been shown clearly to distort research evidence that would potentially damage tobacco sales. But that is analogous to the situation described in your recent editorial concerning the Portman Group and the Alcohol Education and Research Council (AERC) (Edwards et al. 2004). Unfortunately, the influence of the alcohol industry goes much further than just the research agenda. The alcohol industry now has unprecedented access to influencing the UK government's alcohol strategy. As a result it has managed to persuade the UK government to leave alcohol control largely to industry self-regulation, an approach which until now has not managed to stem the rising tide of alcohol-related problems in the United Kingdom (Prime Minister's Strategy Unit 2004), and has been shown to be ineffective in other countries (Babor et al. 2003). Alcohol control policies based on sound research evidence that were inconvenient to the alcohol industry have been excluded from the National Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England (Drummond 2004). Instead we have a new Licensing Act (DCMS 2003) which paves the way for 24-hour opening hours for licensed premises in England, which may have harmful consequences in terms of public health, crime and disorder. Far from being a ‘little storm in a British beer mug’, as Edwards et al. (2004) suggest, tongues in cheeks, these developments should be of great concern to the international addiction research community. If properly conducted independent research is ignored or trashed in favour of commercially motivated advice from the alcohol industry, what is the point of commissioning or carrying out research? Public confidence in UK government-funded research, and advice based upon it, suffered in the wake of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis (BBC News 2000). As a result, when concerns were raised more recently about the safety of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) triple vaccine and a possible link to autism, many parents were sceptical of the Department of Health's advice, and vaccination levels dropped dramatically (BBC News 2004). We now know that the Lancet withdrew the research paper which started the MMR scare when it discovered that the principal author had an undeclared financial conflict of interest. Further, the Royal College of General Practitioners has raised concerns about the ‘unhealthy’ influence of the pharmaceutical industry in research and medical education, prompting the House of Commons Health Committee to hold a public inquiry on the influence of the industry over the health system (Moynihan 2004). If the government wants to restore confidence in publicly funded research, it needs to ensure that the commissioning of research, upon which policies are based, is free from any implication of conflict of interest. The government also needs to ensure that alcohol policy is based on independent research evidence rather than listening to the braying of alcohol industry lobbyists. As far as the AERC is concerned, its credibility as a publicly funded research sponsor has been seriously damaged by the appointment to its Board of a Portman Group representative with such a clear conflict of interest in relation to independent research on alcohol. The AERC needs to reverse its decision in relation to this appointment. Alcohol researchers also need to think carefully about their involvement with the AERC. To obtain funding from an organization with a clear conflict of interest undermines the independence and credibility of the research. This may cause some short-term pain for researchers, but there will be a longer-term gain of ridding publicly funded research of conflict of interest and alcohol industry lobbyists. In the interests of restoring public confidence in research, the government would be well advised to have this alcohol research funding administered by a research body that is free from industry lobby groups. The government has become too close to the alcohol industry in determining alcohol research and public policy priorities, a relationship which it may yet come to regret.