Alcohol policy researchers are fuming over a letter sent by members of Congress last month, which criticizes a panel of experts charged with assessing the health risks of drinking alcohol.
The letter reflects some of the tensions arising as federal health officials revise dietary guidelines for Americans based on a review of research, including mounting evidence of alcohol-related harms.
The ICCPUD, short for Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking, is a 20-year-old group within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseeing the dietary guidelines process. Instead of including alcohol in the normal guidelines process, HHS tasked the ICCPUD with looking at the evidence on alcohol-related harms and reporting back to the guideline writers. This is alongside a separate panel, led by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, which was created last year to study alcohol. Data from both panels are to be used in drafting the guidelines that will set limits for low-risk alcohol consumption.
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